They call it Pacific; an eye-witness story of our war against Japan from Bataan to the Solomons

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Digili^u.^.A TfiM^^it UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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BY CLARK LEE

THEY CALL IT

PACIFIC

AN EYE-WITNESS STORY OF OUR

WAR AGAINST JAPAN
FROM BATAAN TO THE SOLOMONS

NEW YORK : THE VIKING PRESS : 1943

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THIS EDITION IS PRODUCED IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH ALL
WAR PRODUCTION BOARD CONSERVATION ORDERS.

COPYRIGHT 1943 BY CLARK LEE

PRINTED AND BOUND IN U. S. A. BY C. L.

FIRST PUBLISHED BY THE VIKING PRESS IN MARCH I943

SECOND PRINTING APRIL 1943

THIRD PRINTING APRIL 1943
FOURTH PRINTING MAY 1943

PUBLISHED ON THE SAME DAY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED

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. /

TO

MY WIFE, LILIUOKALANI
AND OUR DAUGHTERS

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MAPS

THE PACIFIC (with routes traveled by tlie author)
INSIDE FRONT COVER

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
PAGE 157

SOLOMON ISLANDS
INSIDE BACK COVER

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Sergeant HAJIME MATSUIofthe imperial Japa-
nese Army leaned closer to me across the table and said in a
low voice, "I have a message for you from the colonel."

He glanced cautiously around the windowless, smoke-filled
room. In the booth next to us two husky Japanese privates in
weather-beaten khaki were flirting loudly with a moon-faced
girl recently imported from Nagasaki to help entertain the
Emperor's soldiers in China.

On the other side a Japanese captain was sprawled face up
across a table, snoring noisily. Beer had spilled down the un-
buttoned coat of his uniform; his sword dangled from his belt
to the floor.

"It was at the colonel's suggestion," Matsui continued, *'that
I asked you to meet me here. The colonel says he believes that
you appreciate Japan's national problems and are personally
friendly to the Japanese people. He says that during your
trips to the front with the Japanese Army, on which he served
as your escort, he has grown to like you— personally; even
though your newspaper stories have been highly critical of Ja-
pan's conduct in China."

Matsui's English was perfect, for he was a native of Southern
California. In other ways, too, he was not an ordinary Japanese
sergeant. His family was one of the most prominent in Japan:
one uncle was a general; another uncle an important official of
the foreign office. Talking to Sergeant Matsui wasn't exactly
the same as talking to Premier Tojo or Foreign Minister Togo,
but from my point of view it was better. The sergeant knew
what was going on in Japan, and would talk about it,

"The colonel has been informed," he continued, "that at
the Japanese army press conferences you have recently made
inquiries as to whether the Japanese barracks at Kiangwan,

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outside of Shanghai, would be used as an internment camp for
Americans in the unfortunate event of war between Japan and
America."

I began to get the picture: a friendly tip regarding intern-
ment camps and how to stay out of them.

Matsui went on, *'It has also been called to the colonels at-
tention that you plan to go to the United States on home leave
in about two months. You have been quoted as saying you
'hoped to get home and back before the shooting started.' "

''That's right," I said. **It's been five years, six months and
sixteen days since I left San Francisco. I've been two years in
Hawaii and the rest of the time in China and Japan. I want to
get home just long enough to visit my family, and maybe see a
football or baseball game again. Then I'll be glad to come
back to the Orient for the duration."

**The colonel takes the liberty of reminding you," Matsui
continued, ''that there have been no regular transpacific ship
schedules from Shanghai for some months. He wishes to point
out that except for two Dutch vessels and one French, no de-
partures are scheduled from Shanghai. There is a possibility
that after the next ten days there may not be any way to get
out.

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The shooting might
start anytime after the next ten days.
"Then the powder keg—" I began.

"Is almost certain to explode shortly and blow up the Orient
with it," the sergeant concluded. "Mr. Kurusu, who is now on
his way to Washington, will tell Mr. Hull that Japan is anxious
for peace on Japan's terms, terms that cannot involve sur-
render of any of the territory which Japan has taken in the past
four years at the cost of so much blood and treasure. Mr.
Kurusu—"

This time I interrupted. "Mr. Kurusu will be told that Ja-
pan's terms are impossible. And then we will go to warl"

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Matsui had said as much as he could. I asked him, "And
what about yourself?"

He took a sip of tea, sucking it in noisily in Japanese fashion.
'Tm here for the duration, or until I get killed. As a youngster
I thought of myself as an American. I was born there and went
to college there. I failed to find a place in my native country
compatible with my education and background. People would
not accept me as an American, because I look Japanese. I went
back to Japan and they put me in uniform. Here I am."

I shook hands with him. "Good-by, Jimmy. I won't see you
until after the war, unless we happen to come face to face in
a trench. But I won't forget what you have told me. And
thank the colonel for me."

I walked out into the sparkling afternoon sunshine and
crisp fall air of Shanghai. The date was November 14, 1941.

My ricksha boy started weaving through the traffic, dodging
speeding Japanese army trucks, a camouflaged light tank,
swarms of rickshas and slow-moving coolies tugging heavily
loaded carts by long ropes. Japanese soldiers, sailors, and ma-
rines crowded the sidewalks, jostling Japanese girls in bright-
colored kimonos. This part of Shanghai was part of Japan's
New Order now.

I directed the ricksha puller, "Garden Bridge. Chop-chop."
I intended to act quickly on the advice that Matsui had given
me. What he had said merely re-emphasized my own convic
tion that war had to come. For months, in stories and letters, I
had been writing that it was inevitable.

Several other Japanese officers and civilians had given me
*'friendly" warnings that I would be wise to leave Shanghai as
soon as possible, but none had been as specific as Matsui.

The Japanese made it perfectly clear that unless the United
States surrendered completely and discontinued its moral aid
to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek— aid backed by a few planes
and other war materials being sent into Free China— there

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could be no settlement of Japanese-American difficulties. They
said Japan had no intention of getting out of Manchukuo,
China, Indo-China, and Hainan Island and going back to
Japan itself. Those were the American terms, and they were
not much less stringent than the terms that would be imposed
on a defeated Japan.

The Japanese were playing for much bigger stakes than the
areas they had already conquered. To go on playing power
politics, they had to gain free access to certain raw materials
they had been purchasing from the United States and from
European colonies in the western Pacific. They needed oil,
aluminum, iron, nickel, tin, tungsten, chrome, manganese,
and rubber. All these, except iron, were ready to hand in Ma-
laya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. The
iron was, and is, in Shansi province in North China. To get
those things meant fighting the United States, Britain, and the
Dutch, and taking away our Asiatic possessions.

Once having those sources of raw materials, Japan would be-
come potentially the strongest power in the world. The next
step, then, would be to unite the races of Asia under Japanese
leadership and domination, and to embark on the program of
world conquest that Japan's militarists and statesmen had out-
lined long before.

As for the United States, we could not afford to let Japan
seize the wealth of the Orient without fighting. So war had to
come, and for a long time nearly every American and every
Japanese in the Far East had seen it coming. . . .

My ricksha man pulled up at Garden Bridge, which led
across Soochow Creek to the heart of the International Settle-
ment. Rickshas were not allowed to pass the Japanese sentries
on the bridge. I walked across, dropping my cigarette before
reaching the sentries. They considered themselves representa-
tives of Emperor Hirohito, and many foreigners had been
slapped or clubbed for * 'disrespectfully" smoking in front of
Imperial Representatives. The Chinese walking ahead of me

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suddenly stumbled to the pavement. He had forgotten to re-
move his hat and the sentry struck him a slashing blow across
the face with the butt of his rifle. I kept my hat on and walked
past rapidly. There was nothing I could do about it— yet.

Across the bridge I took another ricksha. ''Take me comer
Szechuen Road, Foochow Road," I directed the puller. ''One
dollar for go chop-chop." The grinning Chinese youngster
sprinted up the Bund in his bare feet, passing the tall, solid
buildings from which flew the national flags and house flags of
American, British, Japanese, French, Italian, and German
banks, steamship companies, and business firms. He darted
into a side street and halted outside of the Java-China-Japan-
Li jn office.

I had been keeping in close touch with the steamship offices,
both for news stories and because of my plans for home leave,
which The Associated Press had approved for '*late December
or early January." There had been no ships, until the Tjiba-
dak came in.

Since the American freezing of Japanese credits in July,
transpacific shipping had been nearly at a standstill. American
ships were going directly from Honolulu to Manila and then
back to the United States. Most of Japan's big liners had been
diverted from their regular runs and sent to bring Japanese
nationals home from the United States, the Philippines, Singa-
pore, Batavia, and Australia. Early in November the Japanese
announced that the Tatsuta Maru would sail for California on
a similar trip on December 2. A grim-faced naval attach^ in
Shanghai told me, **That is a trap and we know it very well.
They are try ing to get us to send our ships out here for them to
grab. They'd certainly like to get the Coolidge and four or five
other big ones on the first day of war."

In the Java-China-Japan-Lijn offices, the Dutch agent recog-
nized me and called to me over the heads of a group of for-
eigners and Chinese crowded anxiously against the counter.
"If you want to leave," he said, "you are just in time. There has

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just been a cancellation. One cabin is available on the Tjiba-
dak tomorrow morning. It is going to Manila and you may be
able to connect with the President Coolidge for the United
States.'*

The agent beckoned a man standing near by. *'This will be
your roommate/' I found myself shaking hands with an old
friend, Senor Roberto Mujica Lainez of the Argentine Em-
bassy in Tokyo. Roberto had been trying for weeks to get pas-
sage from Shanghai to his new post in San Francisco.

I paid for my ticket and went over to The AP office to tell
the Chief of Bureau, Morris Harris, that I was jumping the
gun on my home leave. Jimmy White of our Peiping Bureau
was on his way to Shanghai so our office would be well staffed.

*'If I can get even as far as Manila, I can help cover the war
from there," I said to Harris. ''Or if I make the Coolidge and
reach Honolulu, I can be assigned to the Pacific Fleet. There is
no use of all three of us getting interned in Shanghai."

Weeks before, I had planned ways and means for escaping
from Shanghai when the Japanese should take over the entire
city, as they were certain to do on the first day of war. With a
group of other Americans I established contact with head-
quarters of the Chinese New Fourth (former Chinese Commu-
nist) Army, just outside the city. They sent an emissary who
slipped through the Jap lines and met us in a back room of the
King Kong restaurant. We ate spicy Szechuen duck, and, as is
the custom in China, said nothing whatever about the purpose
of our meeting. He was looking us over.

As a result of the dinner, a young American-born Chinese
came quietly into our office one day. He introduced himself as
Washington Woo. He told us, **Buy Chinese gowns, caps and
dark glasses, and Bibles." We never did find out what the
Bibles were for.

We mapped a half-dozen possible routes through the mazes
of die International Settlement, across the French Concession
and the Badlands, and finally over the barbed wire guarding

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the Shanghai-Hangchow Railway and thus to Free China and
a 1,400-mile hike to Chungking. We knew it would be touch
and go getting out, for Shanghai was already a huge concen-
tration camp. Its streets were crisscrossed with barricades and
patrolled by sentries, and the entire city was surrounded by
double lines of barbed wire. In September we burned most of
our AP office files, after some Nazi friends warned us that the
Japanese Army was getting impatient and might take over the
entire Settlement at any time. There were a lot of data in the
files that the local Japanese had never seen, and we knew it
would go hard with us if they ever discovered the source of
some of the stories that had been printed in American news-
papers concerning the Japanese Army and Navy in China.
Those stories had gone out under Manila or Hong Kong date-
lines, having been smuggled from Shanghai, where the Japa-
nese operated an illegal and surreptitious mail censorship.

In some of the smuggled stories I had reported Japan's war
plans and preparations. During the summer and fall Japan had
carried out a gigantic military mobilization and had called
home from the Seven Seas her vast merchant fleet totaling
more than 5,000,000 tons of shipping. The ships were turned
over to the Army and Navy.

Major Frank Merrill, American military attach^ in Tokyo,
came over to Shanghai en route to his new post in Chungking,
and gave me details of the mobilization. "The Japanese have
got every able-bodied man, and some who aren't so able-bod-
ied, in uniform. They have 2,670,000 men under arms. Of
these 1,667,000 are combat troops. Their reserves number
3,300,000. They have a total of 10,500,000 men to draw from,
but some of those are undoubtedly essential to their industry.

"They now have only sixteen divisions in Manchukuo. Since
October the first the others have been moving southward,
probably to Hainan Island and Saigon. They are getting set to
jump."

I kept in close touch with the Japanese military and the in-

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formation they had given me coincided with Major Merrill's.

One Japanese officer, Captain M. Takada, graduate of Co-
lumbia University and army spokesman in Peiping, came
down to Shanghai for a visit. We had christened him "Baroness
Takada/' because of the mock elegance of his manners— man-
ners which he had so far forgotten one night in our home in
Peiping as to chase our comely Chinese amah around and
around the garden in the middle of a snowstorm— (she won
the race!) Takada was good-humored and informative, al-
though indirectly so.

He told me, by indirection, that although the Japanese mo-
bilization had taken place in Manchukuo, it would be ''quite
easy" for Japan to move her troops to other areas, as necessity
might dictate. He said what happened in Manchukuo would
depend on the fighting on the Moscow front. *'War with Russia
is inevitable someday, of course."

Lieutenant Colonel Kunio Akiyama, the Japanese spokes-
man in Shanghai who looked exactly like a caricature of Japa-
nese Militarism but who was a friendly and even a timid
person underneath his military trappings, made a hurried trip
to Tokyo to report. He told us on his return that he had found
all Japan hopeful that an agreement would be reached in the
Washington talks between Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo
Nomura and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, but, alas, "agree-
ment would be possible, ah, only if United States recognize
Japan's true position as leading nation of Orientl" With ap-
propriate gestures, he told us the American embargo was
"strangling Japan," and Japan could not put up with it much
longer.

The Japanese Army and Navy liaison men entertained the
American correspondents more frequently than formerly, but
in smaller groups. There were fewer geisha girls, less sake and
more serious conversation than at previous similar dinners in
the Japanese restaurants of Hongkew. At those dinners we dis-
cussed war plans and possibilities and invariably they asked

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the question, *'Will America fight?*' Our answer was always,
'*We certainly will/*

One night a Japanese naval captain asked an American Ma-
rine officer and me to dinner. He said, ''The Japanese Navy is
invincible in the western and southwestern Pacific. We will
capture your bases. If you send your ships out to try to retake
them, our dive-bomber and torpedo-plane pilots will crash
their planes on your decks and sink your ships.'*

The Marine officer answered, "Nobody doubts the suicidal
courage of your pilots, my de^r Muriyama-san. But when your
ships come into our waters our pilots will go just as low and
just as close as necessary to get home their bombs and torpe-
does. And if it is necessary to crash-dive on your ships, they
will do that too."

Underlying the conversation of many of our Japanese
friends we sensed their fear that Japan in the long run could
not win, and a hope that the United States would back down at
the last moment. There was never any suggestion that Japan
could recede from a position which it considered to be honor-
able and just.

Those Japanese who hoped that war would be averted were
mostly businessmen and a sprinkling of Army and Navy offi-
cers who had traveled in the United States and knew our po-
tential strength. The only reason that they did not want to
fight was that they thought Japan would lose. They did not
abhor war, nor did they lack sympathy with Japan's desire to
rule the Orient. They were just afraid of the ultimate out-
come.

Reports from Chungking said the Japanese had, in recent
raids, ceased their aimless *'area" bombing of the Chinese capi-
tal and had suddenly begun to hit their targets on the nose.
They hinted at a new bombsight.

Late in September I had a close-up of the Japanese Air
Force. Together with a few other correspondents I flew with
the Japanese Army over the Changsha battlefield. Changsha,

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seven hundred miles from the seacoast, was one of the gateways
to Chungking, and the Japanese advance was of great impor-
tance because of the possibility that they might at last be at-
tempting a knockout blow against China. Twice, since 1937,
the Japanese had been turned back outside Changsha, but this
time they took the city in a lightning drive which covered more
than ninety miles over plains and mountains in ten days. They
plunged on southward for fifteen miles past Changsha— and
then withdrew.

When the Japanese quit Changsha we reported the with-
drawal as voluntary and surmised that the Japanese drive was
primarily combat training of troops. We didn't guess, of
course, that within less than three months those same troops
would be using those same tactics in the Philippines and
Burma and Malaya.

We saw Army "97" dive bombers and fast Navy fighters in
action that may have been Zeros, although we had never heard
of Zeros at the time. We took movies and still pictures of the
Japanese planes on the ground and in flight, and by devious
methods succeeded in getting our pictures past the Japanese
military censorship and turning them over to quarters where
they should have done the most good.

We were surprised at the extensive and extremely effective
use the Japanese made of dive bombers.

The Nazi correspondent said, ''These Japanese monkey
men haf learned well dere lesson from der Fuehrer, jal"

He elaborated. Since the Chinese invented gunpowder every
weapon had served the same purpose: to shoot lead or steel and
explosives from one place to another and kill your enemy and
destroy his own guns and his fortifications, cities, and ships.
The airplane was the greatest artillery piece ever invented. It
had its own eyes and unbeatable mobility. Would anyone deny
that a sufficient number of 18-inch guns firing into New York
City or any other city could devastate the city and force its oc-
cupants to surrender? Would anyone deny that enough air-

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planes could accomplish the same end? To do so was to deny
that steel and TNT could win wars.

'*If der Fuehrer had only had enough airplanes to continue
to blitz England for three more weeks • . the Nazi corre-
spondent continued. And so on.

Our sympathy with the Chinese redoubled on that trip, be-
cause we saw what an army was up against without artillery,
and most of all without airplanes. We saw how the Japanese
Air Force co-operated perfectly with the ground troops. When
the ground forces ran into a strong point they would radio
back for a plane. The dive bombers would come over, locate
the Chinese machine-gun nest or pillbox, and swarm down on
it. Then the Chinese would be dead and the Japanese ground
forces would march on past or drive on in their trucks and
tanks.

It was about this time that Japan's future enemies missed a
chance to learn all about the Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane
that was to astound and confound them a few months later. A
report came in to Chungking, the capital of Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek's Free China, that a new, fast Japanese fighter
had made a forced landing on an airfield in Western China
and had been captured intact by the Chinese Army. A special
plane was put at the disposal of the American and British air
attach^ in Chungking to fly over and inspect the Japanese air-
craft. But when they arrived they found the pursuit plane a
messed-up wreck on the airfield. Only the wing tips, with their
bright-red ''Rising Sun" insignia, were undamaged. An over-
anxious Chinese army pilot had taken the Zero up for a test
flight and had found it too hot to handle.

When I returned to Shanghai from the Changsha trip I
found further signs that Japan was on the march. The youthful
Japanese soldiers who had been on guard duty around Shang-
hai had disappeared. They had been a tough, cruel lot, whose
officers had taught them to cultivate what we called the "China
Face*' with outthrust jaw and sneering, down-turned mouth.

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They were replaced by thin, undernourished reservists— office
workers and older men who looked ill at ease in their uni-
forms. The Chinese were greatly pleased at the change, be-
cause the newcomers kicked and beat them less often at the
barriers and barricades around Shanghai.

Through the Chinese secret service I learned that the
younger Japanese troops had been put in transports and sent,
not to Manchukuo, but to the south. That could mean only
one thing: the Japanese had abandoned their plans for attack-
ing Siberia,

The Kwantung army generals, the rulers of Manchukuo,
had wanted to fight Russia first, while the Japanese Navy had
always argued that its ''historic destiny" lay to the south. If
Moscow had fallen the Kwantung Army would probably have
had its way and Japs would have attacked Vladivostok and
surged across the Amur River into Siberia.

But when Moscow held and the Siberian winter came on,
and simultaneously the United States began to tighten its pres-
sure on Japan, the Kwantung army generals agreed with the
admirals, finally, that the blows must be struck to the south
and must be all out.

One by one the Japanese commanders in China went home
to confer with the new premier. General Tojo, with the gen-
eral staff, and with the admirals. Prince Chichibu, brother of
the Emperor, flew down to Indo-China to tie up the loose
strings there. Shortly after his visit Japan took over all of
southern Indo-China, including the excellent harbor of Cam-
ranh and the southern capital of Saigon, which was the obvious
jumping-oflF place for an attack on Malaya and the Dutch East
Indies.

In a series of stories written for The AP in February of
1941 I had said, ''When the Japanese mass troops and ships
and planes at Saigon in large numbers, the danger of war be-
tween the United States and Japan must be reckoned from day
to day or even from hour to hour, since the practice of the Jap-

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anese has always been to strike first, and explain afterward.'*
Now, on the evening of November 14, they were quickly
massing troops, ships, and planes at Saigon **in large numbers,"
I was glad that I was leaving Shanghai— getting out of Japanese
territory— the next morning. I wanted to see the war, but not
from an internment camp.

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1 TOOK a ricksha back to my rooms at the Metropole
Hotel and told the amah to start packing my clothes, "Every-
thing—this time."

I had moved to the hotel after my wife had gone home in
August, following a very polite suggestion from Japanese
Army and Navy officers that "perhaps, in view of growing ten-
sion in Orient, it would be more better if Mrs. Ree returning
Honoruru." We got the point, even if the Japanese always pro-
nounced the letter "1" as "r."

Most of the Americans had left Shanghai months before,
heeding our State Department's thrice-repeated advice that all
American women, children, and "nonessential" men return
to the United States from the Orient. The American business-
men, whose import and export trade had collapsed as a result
of Washington's embargo on shipments of strategic materials
to the Far East and as a result of Japan's bayonet-enforced mo-
nopolies of trade in the Yangtze River hinterland, had little to
do except roll dice for drinks at the American club. As many of
them as could get space on ships, left for Manila or for home.
We expected every ship to be the last one.

Carroll Alcott, the Far East's favorite radio commentator,
had gotten out just in time. He boarded a ship for home under
the escort of a Marine bodyguard. The Japanese hated Alcott
and had tried to kill him three times. Of the five American
newsmen on the original Japanese "blacklist," only J. B.
Powell remained in Shanghai to continue in his China
Weekly Review a courageous and dangerous expos^ of Ja-
pan's murderous outrages in China and of the war lord's prep-
arations to fight America. Powell stayed too long, and when he
finally returned to the United States both his feet had been
amputated as a result of an infection contracted during six
months in a Japanese jail.

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Colonel Samuel Howard, Major *'Duke" Hamilton, and the
other officers of the Fourth U.S. Marines entertained the
American community on the occasion of the Marine Corps'
i66th birthday party on November lo. It seemed more like a
funeral wake than a celebration. The sole topic of discussion
was war, and the only questions talked about were: **How soon
will the Japanese attack?" and ''What will become of us?"

There were only a handful of American women present.
The women and their husbands were keeping their eyes on the
Marines, who had come to China sixteen years before to pro-
tect American interests and who had always been the trouble
barometer for Americans. The husbands said, ''When the Ma-
rines go, we'll send our families." But when the Marines left
on the President Harrison late in November, it was too late for
others. There were no more ships. On its return trip to pick
up additional Marines and a few American men, women, and
children from North China, the Harrison was captured off
Chinwangtao by Japanese destroyers.

That last night in Shanghai I went out on the balcony for a
last look at the city that had been my home for three years, ex-
cept for assignments in Japan, Manchukuo, and North China,
and trips to the front with the Japanese Army.

In the twilight, Shanghai sprawled vast and uneasy from the
massive buildings of the Bund through the jumbled tangle of
slums where four million Chinese lived in space built for half
that many; and then on out to the residential areas where
Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, and the people of a score of
nations had tried to reproduce the atmosphere of their own
home countries on the mud flats of the Yangtze delta.

Shanghai and the other great cities of the eastern coast were
all in the grip of Japanese military rule; a regime characterized
by corruption, graft, violence, poverty, and narcotics. Beyond
and between the Japanese lines was the real China of four
hundred million people, free and unconquerable, but sadly
underarmed. They had been unable to fight against a Japanese

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war machine which American airplanes, gasoline, steel, scrap
iron, and automobiles had made great and powerful,

I recalled that if Shanghai could last until 1942 it would be
one hundred years old. But the chances seemed slim. Since
1937, Shanghai had been in its death throes as a white man's
city. For more than four years Shanghai had been living prac-
tically in a state of siege, with bombs, bullets, and barbed wire
for its daily diet, with its streets stinking of the death, starva-
tion, misery, and corruption of war. The sound of assassins'
pistols and the explosion of terrorists' bombs had become a
part of everyday life.

There was too much champagne in Shanghai, and not
enough rice. The price of rice kept going up and up, and so did
the number of starved Chinese whose bodies were picked up
from streets each morning.

From my hotel balcony I watched the wretched and tat-
tered Chinese street scavengers follow the rice trucks along
Foochow Road. They carried short brooms and dustpans, and
fought for the few crumbs of rice that tumbled to the pave-
ment when the trucks passed. Sometimes they chased the
trucks and slit the bags with long knives, ignoring the blows
rained on their heads by truck guards armed with bamboo
poles.

That was one of the last street scenes I saw in Shanghai.
Some friends came in during the evening to say farewell, and
shortly afterward I was notified that two Japanese army officers
were waiting for me in the hotel grill. They were Lieutenant
Colonel Akiyama, the army spokesman, and his interpreter,
Sublieutenant K. Matsuda, ex-Princeton and graduate of the
University of Missouri. At first I thought that perhaps their
spies had overheard my conversation with Sergeant Matsui
that afternoon. Then I saw Matsuda was carrying a carefully
boxed package containing a beautiful gold lacquer vase.

Akiyama made a little presentation speech before handing
me the package. *Tou have traveled great deal with Japanese

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17

Army in past three years. You have ridden in our military
planes, seen our bombers operate and our troops fight. This
present is in appreciation your effort to report truthfully true
intentions of Imperial Japanese Army in bringing peace and
order to East Asia." Since I had always tried very diligently to
report the *'true intentions" of the Japanese Army, I accepted
the gift.

Akiyama wiped the remains of his second cocktail from his
black mustache and added, "Japanese Army still hoping
United States, Japan not going war, but situation now very
difficult. Mr. Kurusu-san was ordered by Emperor himself to
ask America recognize Japan's honorable intentions. If Amer-
ica refusing—"

'•Colonel," I said, ''it looks like war."

He replied gravely, ''So desu, ne! (That is true!) Very un-
fortunate."

Matsuda, who had once worked for The AP in Tokyo, said,
''Well, if we are both alive after it, maybe we can have some
more tennis games."

No flowers to fill the gold vase were forthcoming from the
Japanese Navy. They had recently traced to me the authorship
of some stories reporting how Japanese officers were making
fortunes by selling safe conducts for ships to run their blockade
of the China coast and how the Imperial Navy had engaged in
wholesale piracy. I was on their black list.

I went back up to my room, and an American naval officer
from the gunboat out in the Whangpoo called me aside. I
told him what Akiyama had said, and asked him if we would
have trouble defeating the Japanese Navy. He replied with
the estimate of our future enemies then fashionable among
our Navy officers, "Their ship handling is superb, their morale
and discipline are excellent. Their gunnery is not so good and
they lack imagination and daring. They haven't fought since
they beat a battered Russian fleet in Tsushima Straits in 1904."

I reminded him, ''Well, as a Navy we haven't fought since

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Dewey sailed into Manila Bay and shot up the outnumbered
and demoralized Spanish fleet. The last real knock-down, drag-
out fight was between the Monitor and the Merrimac/*

Another American officer had joined us. **I don't know ex-
actly how good or how bad the Japs are/' he said, "but I am
dead sure we are going to fight them. And I'm just as sure that
I'll never see the United States again."

A few days later he was transferred to Manila where he
found his new orders awaiting him. He was assigned to the
U.S.S. H OILS ton just before she went down with all hands in
the Java Sea.

On the morning of November 15, 1 went aboard the Tjibo
dak. My Argentine friend, Senor Mujica Lainez, made it by
the skin of his teeth. Out of touch with his government, he was
without funds. Rear Admiral William C. Glassford, com-
mander of the United States Yangtze patrol and once naval
attach^ in Buenos Aires, heard of Roberto's plight and put
the Good Neighbor policy into practical effect by advancing
the necessary money.

Riding down the Whangpoo by launch to the docks where
the Tjibadak was moored, I experienced the sensations of a
condemned man who is granted a last-minute reprieve. As we
passed the last Japanese destroyer anchored in midstream even
the air seemed freer. I was leaving behind the gigantic prison
camp that was Shanghai.

The 8,000-ton Tjibadak was in war paint, her hull a dark
gray and her masts light brown. Her captain wasted no time in
casting off and heading down the curving Whangpoo and into
the vast, muddy Yangtze delta.

"This is the last trip that we shall make here," he told me
nervously. "Maybe we were foolish to make this one. My gov-
ernment in the Netherlands East Indies believes that Japan
will attack soon."

We promptly christened the Tjibadak the "S.S. Jitterbug."
Our fellow passengers in first and second class included an

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American authoress who had spent seven years making an
''esoteric study of exotic religions." She insisted on instructing
the Standard Oil official in Yogi. The grass widow from Ba-
tavia wanted Roberto to give her tango lessons on the blacked-
out moonlit deck. The Mexican, who was engaged in the dan-
gerous business of carrying forbidden currency from Oriental
country to country for a profit, sat in the smoking room for
hours at a time, taking potshots at cockroaches with a toy .45
which fired BB shot. He was a crack marksman. The naval
commander who had tried to drink Shanghai dry— and like
thousands before him had failed— was watched constantly by
his two Medical Corps "escorts."

In Amoy, two days south of Shanghai down the China Coast,
we ran into trouble. I snapped a few pictures of Japanese ships
and shore installations, and then luckily changed the roll in
my camera before taking one more. A Japanese patrol boat
spotted me and Marine officers in khaki uniform, with their
swords swinging threateningly, hurried aboard and demanded
that I be brought to the bridge. They examined the camera. I
had not turned the crank on my Rolleiflex after taking one
shot and the shutter would not click and the indicator pointed
to "1." I told them that meant no pictures had been taken.
The interpreter, anxious to show his knowledge of cameras,
confirmed my statement, "Hail Yes! That is so. I mysefu hav-
ing Rorreifrex." The senior officer, who had given no sign that
he understood English, said, "Okay, you can go."

The officers searched the ship for other cameras, found and
confiscated a few, and then went ashore to develop the films.
The Tjibadak's captain was sweating blood, fearing his ship
would be held up indefinitely, but they let us proceed.

We steamed southwestward down the coast for twenty-four
hours and next day sailed into Hong Kong s beautiful harbor.
A patrol boat pitched on the sparkling blue waters at the har-
bor entrance and a bearded English naval officer challenged
us through a megaphone. Our captain shouted back, "Her

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Imperial Netherlands Majesty*s ship Tjibadak, sailing under
British Admiralty orders/* Then the patrol boat guided us
through the mine fields, while an ancient ''Singapore" flying
boat, with twin puller and pusher motors, lumbered overhead.

That, and a few other planes of similar vintage, were Hong
Kong's air force. Great Britain had neither the men nor air-
planes nor guns to spare for the defense of this once mighty
bastion of Far Eastern Empire. But the high hills of the Kow-
loon Peninsula, behind which lurked the Japanese Army,
looked formidable, and Victoria Island, on which the city of
Hong Kong is located, bristled with guns and machine-gun

Nearly all the foreigners ashore were in uniform, with Ca-
nadian and Indian troops predominating. Most of the British
families were gone, but a few officials were congratulating
themselves on evading the evacuation order and keeping their
wives and families with them. There were blockhouses and
barbed wire along the waterfront, and across the island at Re-
pulse Bay. The Royal Navy was represented by a few torpedo
boats and a destroyer or two in the harbor.

The town was as filthy, in the crowded water-front areas,
as ever, and as magnificent from the soaring Peak. People were
still dancing in the Hong Kong and Gloucester Hotels, and
some of the more beautiful Chinese and Eurasian girls had as
many as five handsome, uniformed escorts. Everybody was
talking about the recent defense scandal which revealed that
part of the funds set aside to build air raid shelters had found
its way into the bank account of Mimi Lau, a young Cantonese
beauty. At least one official had taken the honorable way out:
a single shot through the temple.

On our strolls through the city Roberto would stop aghast,
and stare angrily, as he saw for the first time what the British
Colonial thought of the Chinese. Time after time we saw
amiable-appearing British businessmen push Chinese who got
in their way on the sidewalks, or urge on ricksha men with a

posts.

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few light strokes of a cane. It was all done casually, as some-
thing in the normal course of events.

The Canadian troops had just arrived and their transports
and a light cruiser were still in the harbor. Their first day
ashore some Canadians went into the Gloucester lounge for
tea and were told no men in uniform, except officers, would be
served. They went out muttering, "So we came here to fight
for democracy. Oh yeah, what democracy?" A few days later
the order was changed and the Canadians went wherever they
pleased until December 8.

As in Shanghai, business for foreigners was dead in Hong
Kong, and nobody thought much about the future except that
it was obvious that something had to break soon. With no ship-
ping, it was impossible to plan.

Some of our Hong Kong friends recalled the prophecy of a
Chinese historian in 1841, when the British first took Hong
Kong, that "British rule will last exactly one hundred years."
I told them that the Japanese plan called for the capture of
Hong Kong within nine days after the initial attack. That in-
formation came from my ex-friend. Major T. Nishihara of the
Imperial Japanese Army, who had spent four years in Hong
Kong as a "language student," and who at a Shanghai party one
night amused us by drawing a map of Victoria Island and
sketching in every one of Hong Kong s big gun positions. Ac-
tually, Hong Kong held for eighteen days.

During the two-day trip from Hong Kong to Manila we
failed to sight a single ship, but the Hong Kong-bound Pan
American Clipper flew low over us on the opposite course.

Entering Manila Bay we glanced only casually at the Bataan
Peninsula and the impressive saddle of Mt. Mariveles. The
channels through the mine fields led us close to the shore of
Bataan, although we didn't know at the time that it was Ba-
taan. The peninsula looked forbidding and uninhabited. We
turned our glasses on the vast bulk of Corregidor, with its huge
barracks atop the highest point and the American flag waving

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over them. Somebody pointed out the radio masts at the Cavite
naval base as we passed.

Behind the breakwater in Manila Harbor we saw the Cool-
idge tied up, with an American cruiser in battle paint beyond
it. Tanks and trucks and boxes of ammunition and crated
planes were being unloaded from many ships of a convoy just
in from the United States,

The harbor seemed to be full of the submarines and de-
stroyers of Admiral Thomas C. Hart's Asiatic Fleet. Navy cata-
pult planes buzzed overhead and an occasional pursuit and
four-engined bomber. Those were the first American war-
planes rd seen in more than two years.

I called to Roberto, "Look at those American ships and
planes. Don't they make you feel good?" Roberto, who like all
Argentines is meticulous about the use of the adjective **Amer-
ican,'* replied, "You mean those United States of North
America ships and planes, my amigoy

I said, "Well, American or United States of North America
as you please. They certainly are beautiful. When the Japs
come down here, they'll be playing in the Big League for the
first time in their lives."

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3

Th OSE warships looked wonderful but, in a way, the
Coolidge looked even better. I hadn't known until the Tjiba-
dak reached Manila whether or not the Coolidge had already
sailed. Now there was a chance that I could get home for
Christmas, see the Rose Bowl game, and be on my way back to
the Orient before war started.

I wanted to walk up Fifth Avenue in the snow on Christmas
Eve.

Those were splendid dreams. But two days before the Cool-
idge departed a telegram came for me. Before opening it I
knew what it was. It said: "Remain Manila until further or-
ders stop regards kenper/' Kenper is Kent Cooper, general
manager of The Associated Press.

The telegram was disappointing; but it was no great sur-
prise. I had felt guilty about planning to leave the Orient at a
time when tension was growing so great that something had to
snap soon. In a series of stories written on the trip down on the
Tjibadak, I had predicted that Japan would "soon go to war"
against the United States and Great Britain. I had also re-
ported how three thousand Nazi technical, industrial, naval,
and aerial experts had been working in Japan for the past
year, co-operating actively with those Japanese admirals
and generals who believed that Japan's hour of destiny had
struck.

With the Kurusu-HuU talks deadlocked and with the air of
suspense so thick in the Far East that you could cut it with a
samurai broadsword. The AP needed all its available staff men
in the prospective trouble areas.

Besides, I was accustomed to messages like that. Three years
before, I had had my suitcases all packed to leave Honolulu for
New York en route to an assignment in South America. Just

23

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before my ship sailed I received a cable saying, in effect: **Sc
sorry for you but please go to Tokyo to cover the Japanese-
Soviet undeclared war at Changkufeng Hill." I had been in the
Orient ever since. In nine years, I had spent only thirty-four
days in the continental United States.

This was my first visit to the Philippines, and I was anxious
to determine how the attitude of Americans toward the Fili-
pinos contrasted with that of the Britons in Hong Kong and
Shanghai toward the Chinese. My first experience was not re-
assuring.

The night before the Coolidge sailed, a small group of us
went to the modern chromium, steel, and glass Jai Alai build-
ing and afterwards stopped in at tlie Manila Hotel taproom for
a nightcap. The only other customer was an American woman
who had taken about fourteen whiskies beyond her limit.

After 2 A.M., the legal closing time, she demanded another
drink. A sergeant of the Philippine Constabulary, who was as-
signed to the bar to see that the law was obeyed, told her po-
litely that the boys were not allowed to serve her.

She turned on him in blazing fury and poured forth insult
after insult. The words were unprintable, but the general
tenor was: "We Americans are the ruling race here. You Fili-
pinos are dirt.*' She struck the sergeant in the face with her
clenched fist, and tried to tear the badge from his uniform
blouse. We could see him fighting to control himself, and he
did. Finally the waiters took the woman to her room.

Roberto Mujica Lainez shook his head sadly. "And you have
been telling me, my amigo, that the Chinese in Hong Kong
and the natives in Malaya and Burma will not fight for the
British when war comes, because the British have mistreated
them and have offered them nothing. Now you are aware why
Argentina says "No*' when the United States asks for naval
bases/'

I didn't answer, except to walk over and ask the constabu-

D . y Google

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laryman his name. He told me he was Sergeant Hilario Fran-
cisco, I shook hands with him and congratulated him on the
way he had conducted himself.

When I walked back Roberto said, **Well, maybe that was
an isolated incident and most Americans feel the way you do.
I know your country has given the Filipinos schools and hos-
pitals and improved their economic status. Maybe they will be
loyal to you and fight for you after all."

Next day I went down to the Coolidge before sailing time.
To read on the trip, I gave Roberto a copy of the book, Japan
Must Fight Britain by Lieutenant Commander Tota Ishimaru
of the Japanese Navy, in which he told why, how, and when
Japan would attack Singapore; and also a translation of Ishi-
maru's recent magazine article stating that the "encirclement"
of Japan by the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands
East Indies could easily be broken.

I assured Roberto that Ishimaru's writings were required
reading in the United States Navy, and that our officers had
taken careful note of Japan's plans— as openly set forth by
many retired admirals— of striking ''smashing" blows at our
Pacific naval bases before the actual declaration of hostilities.

"They won't catch m napping as they did the Russian Fleet
at Port Arthur back in 1904," I told Roberto. "Even a year ago
last spring, when I visited Honolulu, Admiral Richardson was
so concerned over the possibility of a Japanese sneak attack
that he wouldn't allow more than two or three of our capital
ships in Pearl Harbor at one time. The Navy was maintaining
aerial patrols far out to sea. The Japs will be the ones to be
surprised this time."

I went back to my room in the Manila Hotel and watched
the Coolidge sail out of the harbor with the tropical afternoon
sun shining brightly on the red, white, and blue insignia
painted on the sides and funnel of the ship. While the Cool-
idge grew smaller and smaller in the distances of the bay and

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finally passed out of sight around Corregidor, I read the head-
lines in the evening newspapers:

TOJO DECLARES JAPAN **ONE BALL OF FIERY RESOLUTION^
AGAINST DEMOCRACIES

U.S. ADMIRAL SAYS NAVY CAN SINK JAP FLEET IN THREE WEEKS
HULL-KURUSU NEGOTIATIONS STILL DEADLOCKED

If there was any hope of avoiding war between the United
States and Japan it wasn't evident in the headlines. The Phil-
ippines would obviously be one of Japan's first targets, and I
set out to learn how well the islands were defended.

The commanders of our armed forces, General Douglas
MacArthur and Admiral Hart, were neighbors of mine in the
Manila Hotel but they were too busy to give private inter-
views. I frequently saw Admiral Hart coming into the hotel,
steely-eyed, immaculate in his white tropic uniform, and al-
ways looking as if he had a chip on his straight shoulders; but
I never saw MacArthur. He was in his office most of the time.

A number of correspondents had been in the Philippines
for varying lengths of time, including Ray Cronin and Russell
Brines of The AP, Carl and Shelley Mydans of Life, Arch
Royal Gunnison of North American Newspaper Alliance, and
Jack Percival of the Sydney Morning Herald, and with them I
discussed the vulnerability of the islands. The Coolidge had
just brought in several thousand American soldiers— its second
such trip— and the consensus was that ''there are some three
divisions of American troops here, about sixty thousand men.**

'*And what are the Philippine forces?" I asked.

''The Filipino Scouts, who are soldiers of the regular Ameri-
can Army under American officers, probably number ten thou-
sand to fifteen thousand. They are professional soldiers and
first-class ones, the best riflemen in the whole U.S. Army, for
example. In addition there are some fifty or sixty thousand in
the Philippine Army, which consists of youngsters just recently
called into service and now being trained."

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"How about our air force?"

"There must be five hundred planes, pursuits, and heavy
bombers. The Navy has a lot of PBY patrol bombers."
"What else is there in the Navy?"

"Admiral Hart has about thirty-six submarines, of which
half are new and the others old 'S' boats. He has about the
same number of destroyers and one heavy cruiser, the Hous-
ton, and a light cruiser, the Marblehead. And those motor
torpedo boats tied up outside the Manila Hotel, those black-
hulled babies with four torpedo tubes and .50-caliber machine
guns.

Manila Bay is mined and no enemy ships can ever get in
there under the guns of Corregidor and the other forts guard-
ing the entrance to the bay. Corregidor, itself, of course is im-
pregnable."

Our war strategy, as we worked it out, was for the heavy
bombers to attack Formosa and Hainan Island and mess up
the enemy transports before they reached Luzon. Admiral
Hart s patrol planes would spot the enemy ships, and the subs
and destroyers and cruisers would tear into them. If any sur-
vived to reach the islands, American forces would mop them
up on the beaches and chase them back into the sea. Then the
U.S. Fleet would come out and close in behind the Japs in
Indo-China, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies— if they had
dared to go that far. There were plenty of planes in Singapore,
we thought, and the Dutch had a strong force of American
airplanes and a small but capable navy.

With Ray Cronin and Russell Brines I visited various mili-
tary establishments around Manila. We saw P-40's landing and
taking oflF at Nichols Field and talked to some of the pilots.
They told us it was a red-hot airplane with plenty of guns and
plenty of speed, but was a little heavy to handle. Being Ameri-
cans, we agreed that it was undoubtedly the best pursuit ship
in the world, certainly better than anything the Japs could
hope to have.

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The defense picture in the Philippines appeared reassuring;
and bit by bit I began to learn more about the islands them-
selves and their inhabitants. About all I had known before-
hand was that some eighteen dialects were spoken in the more
than seven thousand islands that made up the Philippines;
that the Moros of Mindanao were such tough and durable
little fighters that we had never been able to subdue them
after purchasing the Philippines from Spain; and that colorful
little Manuel Quezon had recently been re-elected President
of the Commonwealth.

The Philippines were scheduled to become independent in
1946, largely owing to Quezon's fight for complete separation
from American control, but I considered the president's pol-
icy of independence unrealistic as long as Japan was on the
march. I rather suspected that Don Manuel himself would be
willing to postpone the independence question for a while
until the Pacific situation cleared up. Actually, as it turned
out, it couldn't have been much worse for the Filipinos even
if they had been on their own when Japan attacked. They lost
their country, which was all that could have happened any-
way.

I read some books on the history and economy of the Phil-
ippines and learned enough about them to argue with those
Americans who contended that our record was one of unmixed
altruism— that we had spent more money in the islands than
we had taken out of them. That was true as far as official gov-
ernment funds were concerned, but the amounts taken out by
the government failed to include the vast riches in gold, sugar,
and copra which individual Americans and American compa-
nies had made in the islands.

The Filipinos of Manila spoke an English which was gram-
matically impeccable but very formal. They had a grave dig-
nity and little gaiety, and their sense of humor was restrained
rather than exuberant. They dressed soberly, the men in white
suits and dark ties.

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At first, their frequent use of the word "sir" annoyed me
because I misinterpreted it as a symbol of servility and I
thought that spoke badly for the record of the United States
in the islands. But later I learned that the ''sir'* was a hold-over
from the polite Spanish ''senor," and more than anything else
was a mark of the complete trust and confidence that the Fili-
pinos of Manila felt for the Americans. We told them we were
big and strong and powerful, and would take care of them, and
they believed us.

Russell Brines of The AP, a former coworker in the Hono-
lulu bureau, arranged a sight-seeing tour of the city in his
ancient Ford. ROTC cadets, with papier-mach6 helmets, were
going through casual bayonet drills on the green lawns sur-
rounding the ancient walled city. They seemed to be having
a lot of fun. We drove forty miles up into the hills, along a
smooth cement highway running through rice fields and past
nipa shacks built on stilts.

At the mountain resort of Tagaitay we said hello to Mel-
ville Jacoby of Time Magazine and his wife, who were on their
honeymoon. Mel was tall, dark, and slim, alternately boyish
and then mature beyond his twenty-five years; and Annalee a
pretty, intense girl with a keen sense of humor and a prodi-
gious memory. We offered them some entirely unnecessary and
unheeded advice on the care and feeding of two baby pandas
which they were tending and photographing. The pandas, a
gift from Madame Chiang Kai-shek to the women of America,
were awaiting shipment to the United States.

Back in town we cashed checks at a bank owned by Catholic
priests, and learned that the Church was almost as big and
powerful a landowner and financial factor here as it was in
Mexico, prerevolution. The priests had raised large sums of
money in the Philippines for General Francisco Franco.

In the Manila Hotel barber shop I met Admiral Glassford
and his chief of staff, Commander Charles Jeffs. They reported
a rough trip from Shanghai in their two Yangtze River gun-

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boats, which were never built for soagoing. Washington had
ordered them out when the Marines left. **Jap destroyers shad-
owed us all the way past Formosa, The Japs are on the move
everywhere. Troops are coming down the Yangtze and going
south in transports, to Hainan and Indo-China." The Presi-
dent Harrison arrived from Shanghai, after landing most ot
the Fourth U.S. Marines at Olangapo, and its few civilian
passengers were just too late to get accommodations on the
Coolidge. The Harrison turned around and went back to
North China to pick up the rest of the Marines. In the first
days of December, excitement mounted in the Philippines as
the headlines from Washington and Tokyo recorded official
pessimism over prospects of a peaceful settlement in the Pa-
cific. Nearly everyone in Manila thought war was coming, and
it was just a question of "How soon?" Life in Manila was no
longer life as usual. There was an unusual number of mar-
riages of youths called to service in the Army. As in Hong
Kong and Shanghai few people could make any arrangements
for the future because commercial shipping had stopped and
the economy of the Philippines was keyed to its trade with
the United States.

There were still a few optimists. My wife's cousin, George
Fairchild, called at the hotel. He had just returned by Clipper
from Washington, where he had tried to arrange for some
ships to carry Philippine sugar to the United States instead
of the cargos of chrome ore with which most of the vessels were
loaded. He had talked to Roosevelt who, he reported, **is very
anxious to avoid war with Japan and hopes it can be done."
I told him the situation looked hopeless.

The Philippine government called up more recruits and
General MacArthur was quoted as saying privately that
120,000 Filipinos would be in uniform within the next few
months. The problem was to get equipment for all of them.

Making his first public appearance in months. President
Quezon told students gathered on the campus of the Univer-

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31

sity of the Philippines, "Bombs may be falling on this campus
soon." Some of the students laughed, and Quezon raised his
arms over his head and shouted into the microphone, **It can
happen, I tell you."

He paused solemnly and then went on, *1 pray God that
the Philippines be spared from the horrors of war. But, if we
should be participants in the struggle, it will be a good thing
for us for two reasons: First, it will give us an opportunity to
show the American people we are willing and ready to lay
down our fortunes and our lives in defense of the American
flag; and second, because it will teach our youth— which, reared
in the ease and comfort of an American-protected market, has
whiled away its time in luxury and frivolity— how to suffer and
how to die. For no nation is worth anything unless it has
learned how to suffer and how to die."

On December 4 we got definite news that Japan was on the
march. Newspaper dispatches from Shanghai reported several
new and huge convoys were moving southward from the
mouth of the Yangtze River. Almost simultaneously Austral-
ian airmen, flying American-built Hudson reconnaissance
bombers out of Singapore, sighted a force of eighty Japanese
transports escorted by cruisers and destroyers headed into the
Gulf of Siam in the direction of Malaya or Thailand.

At the same time most of the warships of the Asiatic Fleet
slipped out of the harbor and we knew they were out scouting
for signs of a Japanese invasion force headed toward the
Philippines.

The next day, December 5, our New York headquarters ad-
vised us to inform our staff correspondents throughout the
Far East: '^Washington says situation critical." As a result of a
similar warning. Allied defense forces throughout the Far East
were put on the alert.

The following morning General MacArthur and Admiral
Hart held separate conferences with local reporters and cor-
respondents. The military commanders conveyed to the news-

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men the import of messages from Washington indicating that
war was imminent. General MacArthur thought the attack
would come sometime after January i. Both the general and
admiral said they were prepared, however, and would fight
with all the forces at their command. Hart had sent his ships
to sea to scout, and he was optimistic about the striking power
of his subs. Sunday night, which was December 7 in Manila
but December 6 back in Pearl Harbor, a group of us sat over
cool drinks in the spacious, palm-lined lobby of the Manila
Hotel. There was one Filipino, who made only one contribu-
tion to the conversation. He was Joaquin Miranda, a master
draftsman attached to the United States Engineers.

"In the opinion of the Filipinos," he said, "the present situ-
ation is becoming intolerable. We find it most difficult to sit
and wait while an enemy chooses his own time to bomb our
cities and kill our families and seize our country. We would
be very happy if the United States found it convenient to force
Japan to discontinue her threats against our people."

We took a poll of those around the table and found that all
but one of us thought war was very close. The dissenter was
C. C. "Chappie" Chapman of Mackay Radio, who had lived
in Japan longer than any of us. He was convinced the Japa-
nese people were opposed to war.

I bet Chappie the cost of a message to my wife in Honolulu
that we would be at war within a week. I borrowed his pencil
and wrote the radiogram: "Take care of yourself okay here."
She got it while the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. It
was the last civilian message received there before censorship
was established. *

On Monday morning December 8, at 2 A.M., Ray Cronin
telephoned. ''The Japs have blasted hell out of Pearl Harbor."
I was sleepy and didn't hear him, and he repeated it. I scram-
bled out of bed, pulled on a slack suit and a pair of sandals,
and took a taxi to our office in the Manila Bulletin building.

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BRINES was already in the office with Cronin, and
we discussed plans for covering the war. We debated whether
we should enlist, but decided we would be more useful in our

When Manila bestirred itself and awakened, shortly after
sunrise, the people of the city could not believe their eyes
when they read the newspaper extras nor their ears when their
radios repeated over and over, 'Japan attacks America."

They had known how intolerably tense the situation had
become, they had known that the United States and Japan
were deadlocked with no solution in sight, but it was incred-
ible that the lightning had struck so soon.

I telephoned several friends and advised them to take their
families to one of the mountain resort towns. I said, 'Tearl
Harbor has been bombed." They couldn't grasp it at first. I
told them, '*The United States and Japan are at war." Then
they understood.

From our office we telephoned the cable companies. Up to
eight-thirty in the morning they still had contact with Guam.
The Guam manager reported: **Many Japanese planes are
attacking us. We have been in and out of our shelter since six
o'clock. Our small forces are still fighting but the Japanese
have landed and are advancing. This can't last long."

I knew that the Japanese were very well acquainted with
Guam. Two years before, at a press conference in the Navy
office in Tokyo, smiling Rear Admiral Kanazawa had con-
tested the statement by. American correspondents that Guam
was of no military value. That was during the controversy in
the American Congress over whether Guam should be forti-
fied or not. Congress was afraid of offending Japan, so the
project was dropped. Kanazawa had taken his pencil and rap-

own jobs.

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idly sketched the principal harbor of Guam. "It is an ideal
harbor," he said, ''The depth here is fifteen fathoms, there
thirty fathoms. By simply blasting the coral heads here—" he
pointed to a place on his map— 'there will be ample room
for ships of all sizes-"

The cable companies got a few brief messages from Hong
Kong. The Japanese were attacking overland from Kowloon
and bombing the Hong Kong water front. The Pan American
Clipper, which had arrived in Hong Kong from Manila the
previous day and was scheduled to take off on its return trip
to Manila at dawn, had been riddled with bullets from strafing
planes and sunk at its pier.

A message sent by Jimmy White came in from Shanghai.
It ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence. It said, * Japa-
nese seized International Settlement U.S.S. Wake captured in
Whangpoo stop heavy machine-gun firing audible from Bund
British gunboat went down with guns blazing under—"

I knew that when the Japs took Shanghai they would go
first to the Press Wireless and Globe Wireless stations which
were both in the International Settlement and w^ere the only
uncensored means of communication. I guessed that Jimmy
White had gotten his brief message through Globe Wireless
at the risk of his life while Japanese troops were advancing up
the Bund after shooting down the White Russian police at
the Soochow Creek bridges.

An urgent press message came from Davao. Japanese planes
were bombing the city, the most important on the southern
Philippine island of Mindanao. One Japanese plane had been
shot down. An American Navy PBY had gone down in flames.
The ancient aircraft tender Langley had been attacked.

The attack on Davao had been long planned by the Japa-
nese and carefully prepared. No less than twenty-five thousand
Japanese had settled there, prior to the prewar immigration
restrictions, and some seven thousand of them were said to be

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of military age and Japanese army reservists. They were ru-
mored to have been armed.

When we learned that the Japs had also bombed Singapore
we realized for the first time the magnitude of the attack they
had launched on a far-flung front from Hawaii to Malaya.

Then, in midmorning, the war suddenly came closer. Our
correspondent telephoned from the mountain resort and sum-
mer capital of Baguio, only 125 miles to the north of Manila.
Japanese planes had bombed Camp John Hay, which they
evidently thought was a big barracks but was actually a recu-
peration camp. An American woman and her baby were
among the nine victims. President Quezon was at Baguio and
the bombs fell near enough to bounce him around. Russell
Brines had also been at Baguio for the week end, but we had
reached him by telephone and he was speeding back to Manila
by automobile when the bombs fell. He passed Clark Field
and Fort Stotsenberg at about 1 1 A.M.

MacArthur s headquarters telephoned. The general issued
a message of "serenity and confidence" to the people of the
Philippines. His forces were on the alert and prepared to
fight off attack.

The spokesman arranged to meet the press at 1 1 A.M., so I
went over to headquarters at Fort Santiago in the Walled City.
Intramuros, which means "within walls,'' was an old Spanish
fort. About a mile square, its thick walls rose to thirty-five feet
from the ground and were wide enough on top for three tanks
—if there had been any tanks— to travel abreast. The wide,
ancient moat was overgrown with thick grass and was used
by American Army officers as a golf course.

You drove into Intramuros through archways in the walls.
Most of the buildings along the straight but narrow streets
were old, two-storied residences with tin roofs. In the south-
eastern corner were large barracks, used by American troops
but still keeping their Spanish names. Five blocks in the north-

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west comer were occupied by Spanish-built churches and
Catholic schools. Fort Santiago was at the western end, with
its back to Manila Bay, and USAFFE (United States Army
Forces in the Far East) headquarters were at No. i Calle Vic-
toria*

The entrance to MacArthur's headquarters was down a
fifty-yard passageway flanked by the plaster walls of buildings.
The building on the left was the Sisters of Charity Catholic
nunnery, one of the oldest in the Philippines. The passage
ended in a garage, which was occupied by a brilliantly polished
black Cadillac limousine. Its license was red with the three
silver stars of a lieutenant general, and later the four stars of a
full general. Behind the garage was a bomb shelter for the
USAFFE staff, with underground desks and switchboard. Mac-
Arthur s spokesman met us in a small room at the right of the
garage. Its walls were whitewashed and undecorated except
for a hat stand of Philippine mahogany and a large stag head
and antlers. The spokesman. Major LeGrande A. Diller, stood
on the stairs which led to USAFFE headquarters upstairs and
to MacArthur's flag-bedecked office.

Diller arranged for two daily press conferences, and for the
issuance of credentials. There was not much news as yet. He
told us to come back at 4 P.M.

War came home to most Manilans that morning when the
air raid siren blew for the first time. Its menacing sound
swelled and wailed out over the flat roofs of the city, and
swirled around the skyscrapers and church towers and into
the slum section down by the bay front. Police whistles blew
and traffic came to a standstill. Crowds flocked out of trolleys
and busses and automobiles, and rushed under cover of the
nearest trees or arcade. Carretera and caleza drivers took their
stone hitching anchors out of their vehicles and snapped them
to their horses' bits.

Constabularymen and Filipino troops patrolled the streets.
The police wore the constabulary uniform of khaki with khaki

D . y Google

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sun helmets and carried .45 automatics and short clubs. The
troops, most of them recent recruits, carried Springfield and
Enfield rifles which they fired on the slightest provocation.
They were dressed in coarse blue fatigue uniforms, with a
few of them in khaki.

The reporters printed cards with the words ''police-press*'
and we pasted them on our windshields, so that we could
drive around the streets during air raids and alarms. We would
go fast, with the horn blowing full blast, to make the police
believe we were on official business.

The siren went oflE eight or nine times that first day of the
war, but no enemy planes appeared. We learned that Boy
Scouts were operating the warning system; that there was no
adequate lookout network around the city and that the air
raid wardens depended on telephone calls from isolated vil-
lagers who couldn't tell a friendly plane from an enemy plane.
Of course that was no problem of identification after the first
few days, when every plane in the sky was invariably Japanese.

In the next few days the alarm kept going off at intervals,
but seldom in advance of a raid. Usually the first warning
would be three loud bomb explosions. I told Brines, **The fel-
low blowing that siren has lost so much face by his false alarms
that he'll keep on sounding it every few minutes until he
happens to coincide with an actual attack." It worked out
exactly that way. Meanwhile, people lost faith in the alarm
system.

The Manila Hotel had its own siren. Sometimes it beat the
city's alarm and sometimes it lagged behind. MTB's (U.S.
Navy motor torpedo boats) starting up at the dock in front of
the hotel would frequently cause the alarm to go off. The
MTB's, popularly called PT's (patrol-torpedo) were sleek and
powerful and noisy. Whenever the air raid siren sounded, and
sometimes in advance of it, the PT's would roar off across the
bay, out of the dock area. They would dodge around out there
until the raid or alarm was ended, and we envied them their

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mobility and speed and ability to get away from the danger
areas.

Three or four Q-boats belonging to the Philippine Army
would follow the PT's away from the dock. The Q-boats
were smaller and less sinister than the American naval torpedo
boats and represented the nucleus of a fleet of Q-boats with
which General MacArthur had hoped to defend the coasts of
the Philippines. He had purchased one in England, and had
had three replicas built in Manila, but no funds were avail-
able to build up a sizable fleet.

Until the first bombs dropped the following night every-
body was more curious than scared when the air alarm
sounded. The police and street patrols had difficulty in keep-
ing people from poking their noses out of doorways and win-
dows.

Throughout that first day of the war, press telegrams kept
pouring in to the Manila Bulletin office. The first Japs set
foot on Philippine soil in the Batan Islands north of Luzon.
They first landed at Aparri on Luzon two days later and
quickly overcame units of the Philippine constabulary, which
withdrew to the south. Even when the Japs landed at Aparri,
which was 250 miles from Manila over rough country, nobody
worried very much.

There was not much fear because everybody thought the
Jap planes would come over Manila and our boys would
knock them out and it would be pretty as hell to watch. We
said to each other: *'The minute that first bomb fell on Pearl
Harbor the United States got moving. From all over the
United States those big bombers are flying to San Francisco.
They'll hop to Hawaii and then on down to Australia and up
here. They'll be here within a w^eek. The aircraft carriers
will ferry pursuit planes out from Hawaii."

At 4 P.M. that first day I went back to USAFFE headquar-
ters. Major Diller looked serious. He said, **Japanese planes
which bombed Aparri this morning and later bombed Tugue-

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garao continued on the way to Manila. They were met and
turned back at eleven this morning by fighters from Clark
Field.

"However, at about one this afternoon Clark Field was
badly bombed. Many planes were destroyed and it appears
that casualties were heavy."

We asked for further details.

*1 don't have any/' he said. "There is only one telephone
line to Clark Field and that has been cut."

That disturbed me. I said to Mel Jacoby, ''Haven't these
people ever heard of the radio or the automobile? Can't they
send up there and find out what happened?" Of course, the
fact was that MacArthur and Diller and the others at head-
quarters knew the truth, but it was too grim for public dis-
semination at that time.

At six in the evening a very scared Manila physician came
into our office at the Bulletin. He had been driving past Clark
Field. **I saw planes diving through the sky and heard explo-
sions. I thought it was practice. Then I saw planes blazing on
the ground and a wounded man ran past me and crawled into
a ditch and a plane came down and sprayed the road with
machine-gun bullets. Santa Maria, I was terrifiedl"

His story precipitated our first skirmish in what was to be a
three weeks' battle with the Navy censorship. The censorship
had been set up early in the morning, after news of Pearl Har-
bor, and was operated by naval reservists who had no expe-
rience in their jobs. We had many a vituperative fight with
them as to whether or not the people of the United States
should be told die truth about what was happening in the
Philippines.

We wanted, especially, to report that our soldiers were
clamoring for planes and to tell the people back home that
without planes the Philippines would be lost. Then and later
in the war the correspondents objected not to the idea of cen-
sorship as a means of keeping military information from the

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enemy, but to the inefficiency, inconsistency, and lack of un-
derstanding with which censorship was administered.

The Manila censors kept our work pretty closely limited
until the last week before Manila fell. Then they relaxed the
censorship completely and everything went through. Those
last days the censors were urging us, ''Get the people of the
United States to wake up and get going and send some air-
planes out here. Tell them we must have help or we'll go
under." Later, on Corregidor and Bataan and elsewhere in the
Philippines we became friendly with the censors. In the midst
of danger we forgot all our previous ill feeling.

The telegrams that were coming into the Bulletin office
sent us scurrying for maps. The Japanese had bombed Vigan,
San Fernando, and Iba Field, and a number of other places
in northern Luzon. Most of us had never heard of them. But
the messages in each case said the enemy concentrated on the
airfields, and in that way we learned for the first time that
our Air Force had built and was building a number of outpost
and dispersal fields down the eastern coast and in the north
central areas of Luzon. In another ten days the fields would
have been completed and our planes dispersed from Clark
Field and Iba. The Japs had obviously known about it all
along.

A blackout was ordered in Manila. There had been several
practice blackouts and most of the city was already prepared
with dark window curtains and dim lights. Roy Bennett,
editor of the Manila Bulletin, worked all afternoon blacking
out part of his city and press room, so that we could have
lights inside. It was sweltering in the Bulletins low-ceilinged
office, and next day we moved over to the TVT (Tribune-
Vanguardia-Taliba) newspaper building where it was a little
cooler, even with the window covered with black paper.

That night the only light in the streets was from the stars
and from the flashes of shots fired by nervous police and sol-
diers. Those were the first shots we heard in the war— the

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rifles and revolvers fired at automobiles with dimmed head-
lights or at windows through which a crack of light was shin-
ing. Sometimes machine guns chattered nervously. Every
night thereafter, until Manila was declared an open city and
the blackout was lifted, the nights were never still.

The AP hired an old Plymouth with a tiny chauffeur whom
w^e named Butch. Butch possessed a calm nature and a pair of
cat's eyes. We would come out of the light in our office and be
completely blind in the blackness of the streets, unable even
to see the automobile a few feet away. But Butch drove us
safely through the inky, narrow streets. He could spot a sen-
try a hundred feet away and halt in time to save us from get-
ting shot.

It was ticklish approaching the sentries. We would hear the
command, "Haiti" but couldn't see where it came from.
Every sentry had a different method of challenging and a dif-
ferent accent in speaking English. Some would shout, ''Dis-
mount and advance to be recognized." Butch would interpret
the command for us. Usually we would say 'Tress," and the
sentry would let us go on. Sometimes sentries would fire from
a distance at any car, and most of the automobiles which had
to be on the streets at night had one or more bullet holes in
them.

That first night we worked until 3 A.M. winding up the
story as well as possible and getting it on the way to New York.
Butch drove me back to the hotel. I had just tumbled into bed
when the siren sounded. The torpedo boats outside started
up and raced away across the bay. I decided if the planes came
they would attack the docks, just outside my hotel, and that
rd rather get killed in the open air than buried in a building.

I crawled exhaustedly into some clothes and walked down
three flights of stairs and through the hotel. Most of the
guests were heading for the basement air raid shelter under
the air-conditioned dining room. Many of them spent most of
their time there until Manila fell. There were American

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women, with their babies, and English women, and Ameri-
can and English men of all ages. They made themselves as com-
fortable as possible on narrow benches in the shelter which
was about one hundred feet long and thirty wide. The hotel
boys kept fresh ice-water pitchers filled. The only other civil-
ian shelter in town was under High Commissioner Sayre s
residence on Dewey Boulevard.

I walked out of the hotel and across the Luneta and Dewey
Boulevard to the statue of Jos^ Rizal, martyr of the Philip-
pine fight for independence from Spain. There were four
young Filipinos sitting on the stone railing. They were sing-
ing, *Tm Nobody's Sweetheart Now.*'

No planes came, so after a while I went back and to sleep.

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IN THE newspapers of the next morning, Tuesday, De-
cember 9, there was nothing to cheer us up, but the rumors
were all encouraging.

I heard that within four hours after the Pearl Harbor at-
tack American planes had located and sunk the Japanese
carriers which had launched the bombing and fighting planes
against Hawaii. That sounded like the way the United States
would do things, and we all believed it.

Another rumor had American forces on the way to Wake
Island, where U.S. Marines were besieged. We boasted,
* 'They'll knock hell out of those Japs and sink all their ships,
quick."

Someone said that a convoy had left the Hawaiian Islands
for the Philippines. The problem looked simple to us in
Manila: All the United States had to do was load those ships,
put soldiers and guns aboard, and get them started out here.
Of course, they might run into trouble, but the United States
had never dodged a fight and this was American territory
under the American flag.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government called up more re-
cruits. Hundreds and hundreds of them were drilling outside
the Walled City as I drove to the office. Troops in blue denim
dungarees were digging in under the trees along the wide
avenue which bordered the grassy former moat, installing
machine guns. There were also machine guns on the walls of
Intramuros, with American soldiers manning them, but those
guns looked pretty small and ineflEective.

Along the water front the ships which had arrived in the
last convoy were still being unloaded. I watched them from
my room, and the work seemed to be going very slowly.

Additional ships arrived in the harbor^ most of them inter-

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island vessels and some freighters of various allied nationali-
ties. The S.S. Anhwei arrived from Shanghai and Hong Kong
with three hundred British women and children who had
tried at the last minute to make a run for the safety of India.
They were one day out of Hong Kong when war broke, and
their captain was ordered into the nearest friendly port. With
not enough room to tie up, twenty-two of the ships were an-
chored in a straight line, extending from in front of the Army
and Navy Club diagonally across the bay toward the distant
Mariveles mountains.

Occasionally a P-40 roared overhead, approaching or taking
off from Clark Field, and as it passed over the city hundreds
of rifle shots would be fired at it by our Filipino recruits, who
couldn't tell one plane from another. A few Navy planes were
buzzing around over the bay, and we could see PBY's circling
over Cavite, nine miles across the bay.

There seemed to be a great deal of coming and going, and
considerable confusion, around MacArthur's headquarters.
The officers we talked to were serene but uncommunicative.
They didn't have much information from the areas where the
Japs had landed.

The USAFFE communique reported some patrol fighting
in progress around Vigan.

News from other parts of the Orient didn't look so good.
The Canadians were being pushed back in Kowloon toward
Hong Kong Bay. Thousands of Japs were landing in Malaya.
Guam was definitely finished.

Dispatches from our correspondent in Bangkok, w^here the
Japanese allowed radio transmission for several days, indicated
that the Japanese had bought their way into that country. Only
a few days before, the premier had been loudly proclaiming
that the entire country would fight to the last man against in-
vasion, but there had been only five and a half hours' fighting
before the Thais had quit and arrangements had been com-
pleted for the Japanese to occupy the country.

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Brines said, **It looks like the work of our old friend Jiro
Saito." I added, ''Our bull-necked buddy has done it again."
Lieutenant Colonel Saito intermittently, for years, had been
Japan s advance agent of conquest in the south. Educated in
Honolulu, speaking flawless English, Saito had spent three
years in Bangkok in the early 1930 s as military attach^. He
had been rushed to Indo-China in August of 1941 to pave the
way for complete Japanese occupation of that French colony,
and then had gone on down to Bangkok to reap the crop he
had sown years earlier.

Saito had been a pupil of the then Colonel Kenjichi Doi-
hara, ''Lawrence of Manchuria," back at the time of the
Mukden Incident in 1931 when Japan started on the path of
conquest and gave Hitler and Mussolini a few lessons in how
to bluff the other powers. Saito had told me the whole story
of the Mukden Incident— a full confession of Japan's premedi-
tated guilt— in Shanghai some months earlier. He knew the
story well, because it had been he who transmitted the orders
for the Japanese troops to march that snowy September 18,
1931, which is actually the date when World War II started.

There were stories of fifth column activities in Manila, but
as far as I can recall General MacArthur never made any offi-
cial mention of them in his communique and it seems certain
that the number of Filipinos actually in the pay of the Japa-
nese was small. For every traitor at least a hundred Filipinos
died for the American flag. There were one or two confirmed
cases told me by officers of the Army and Navy. A secret radio
transmitter, with beam director to guide the enemy planes,
was found near Cavite Navy Yard and the operators, an
American with a Japanese wife, were arrested. A similar trans-
mitter was found near Clark Field in the restaurant of a Japa-
nese whose customers were chiefly American fliers and ground
troops from Clark Field.

Cafe and bars and restaurants near every one of the Ameri-
can military and naval establishments in the islands were run

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by Japanese undoubtedly sent to the Philippines for the spe-
cific purpose of spying, just like the Japanese Army and Navy
officers, either reservists or on active duty, who came and
went freely in the Hawaiian Islands for years before the out-
break of war.

Filipino fifth columnists, or paid traitors, set fires which
guided enemy planes in night attacks and the Japanese un-
questionably had pipe lines right into MacArthur's headquar-
ters. A week or two after the war started, fifth columnists
attempted to create a panic by starting rumors that the water
supply of Manila was poisoned, but the rumor was quickly
spiked and its effects nullified. Most of the Filipinos working
with the Japanese were members of the outlawed Sakdalista
and Ganap organizations, which wanted freedom from Amer-
ican rule at any cost, and they probably considered themselves
not traitors but patriots.

An American naval officer vouched for a romantic story
of spy intrigue. He said that an attractive Japanese-Filipino
girl employed in a trusted position at the Cavite Navy Yard
had been caught red-handed in an act of treachery. It was
decided that she must be executed on the spot and the officers
present drew lots to see who should carry out the sentence.
The task fell to a young officer who had been enamored of the
girl. Without hesitating he led her outside and shot her.

Most of the Japanese in Manila were rounded up the first
few days of the war. Soldiers arrested some five thousand of
them in Manila alone and found them ready to be taken to
internment camps. They all had purchased small suitcases of
similar size which were packed with clothing, toilet articles,
and food, proving that they had been warned that trouble was
coming.

From everything we could leam the first few days, Japa-
nese forces that had landed in northern Luzon were not very
large. But they were reported to be building a landing field at
Aparri. We wondered why our planes weren't chasing them

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out. We studied the maps with civilian strategists who pointed
to Lingayen Gulf and told us: ''The south shore of the gulf is
the obvious point for a major landing and attack on Manila.
We have known about it for years and are prepared to fight
there. It is the most strongly defended area of the island, with
the exception of Corregidor."

During the day the Japs bombed Davao again and other
isolated small places here and there in the islands.

That night, after midnight, the planes came to Manila. Fd
just gone to bed when I heard motors. They weren't the mo-
tor torpedo boats. They sounded different— more menacing,
more purposeful. They seemed to be coming in from the
northwest, directly across Manila Bay. I went to the window
and tried to follow the planes by the uneven sound of the
motors.

Down to the left, where Dewey Boulevard left the bay and
curved inland, there were many explosions. Although more
than two miles away, they shook the hotel. Within a few sec-
onds a huge fire sprang up, and from that minute on until
late in January there was not a time when the night skies of
Manila were not brilliant with fires, and the skies blackened
in daylight by clouds of smoke. Watching the fires eat down
homes and offices and churches and piers, I thought many
times of Genghis Khan and his hordes of terror spreading
death and ruin over the earth.

That night the planes made only one run on their target,
then circled and headed out across the bay. They had been
guided by flares and small brush fires ringing Nichols Field,
and they hit their target squarely. One 1,100-pound bomb
(500 kilo.) went squarely through a hangar, wrecking the
planes inside. Several parked planes were destroyed.

I telephoned Cronin, who was on duty at the office, and
dressed and went out into Luneta Park across from the hotel.
The fires were blazing higher. Trucks and gun mounts were
turning into Dewey Boulevard and going toward Nichols

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Field. Across the boulevard I saw that two guns had been set
up. I approached them gingerly and the crews greeted me.

They were Americans belonging to the 200th New Mexico
National Guard, an anti-aircraft regiment of the coast artil-
lery which came to the Philippines in September. Their guns
were 37-millimeter rapid-fire weapons, "America's answer to
the dive bomber.'*

In the darkness we introduced ourselves. The sergeant was
Joe Smith, the corporal. Gene Davis. There were Gene Davis's
brother, Dwayne, and Paul Womack, Leon Beasley, Charlie
James, Sam Buse, Lieutenant Frank Forni and Lieutenant
J. A. Oden, Jr.

'*We were at Clark Field yesterday," they said.

'Tor God's sake, tell me about it. I heard the Japs knocked
off a few of our planes."

They said, "Yes, and that ain't all. It was lunch time and
our officers had gone to eat. We had been listening to the radio
and knew the war was on, but we didn't think the Japs were
going to hit us. We were sitting by our guns and chewing the

"A bunch of planes started to come over, with the sun
shining on their silver wings.

"We said, 'Look at them U.S. Navy planes. Goodness me,
but ain't they purtyl'

"Somebody was counting: Tifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three—
My, GodI they ain't oursi' "

Just to verify the story they called over their mate who had
been counting.

"Then the bombs whistled down. One of our guns was hit
squarely. We started to shoot right away, without orders, but
I don't believe we hit many of those bombers. We think they
were four-engined bombers. They hit the hangars and set
them on fire, and a lot of our planes.

"Just as the bombers cleared off the fighters dove down on
us. Somebody counted eighty-six of them. They really came

fat.

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low. They dove up and down the line of planes and set fire to
most of them with bullets* They were firing 20-millimeter can-
non, too." They gave me a few of the empty 20-millimeter
cases> for souvenirs.

"The planes came straight at our guns and when they passed
by the pilots would shake their fists. When they got too close
we'd duck into our foxholes and then shoot at them going
away.

*'We shot down six of them altogether."

They stopped the story to show me what a foxhole was.
Some had already been dug behind their guns. The best way
to visualize a foxhole is to dig a hole six feet long and two
feet wide and three feet deep. Lie down in it, fold your arms
on your chest, remember the smell of lilies, and you'll get the
idea.

They went on with the story. *'Two of our fighters got in
the air. They jumped on the Japs and got one apiece. One
of them got on the tail of a Jap fighter way up in the sky and
rode him down into the ground.

*'We picked up some of the bomb fragments. A lot of us
recognized pieces of our old Fords. Some were hunks of Singer
sewing machines. We said to each other, 'And to think we
sold it to 'em.'

"The crews of the bombers had been eating lunch but lots
of them ran out and got in their planes and started shooting.
One sergeant sat at the nose gun of a B- 17 while it was on fire,
and shot and shot at those Japs. He never tried to get out. An-
other did the same thing and shot until his cockpit was on fire.
Then he ducked out.

**Lots of our pilots and crews were killed running for their
planes.

''The bombs hit the barracks and mess, too, and killed a
lot there.

**Some of them fell in the woods, near Camp Stotsenberg,
where our tanks were parked. But nobody was hit. The planes

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Strafed the quarters at Stotsenberg, which adjoins Clark Field.

*'We heard about three hundred and fifty were killed or
wounded.

**We figure we lost twenty-four bombers, out of thirty-six,
and all of our fighters except a half-dozen or so.
"There's not much left of our Air Force.'*

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JUATER I found out more about how our Air Force was
destroyed, but I never established to my entire satisfaction
why it was on the ground when the Japs came over, more than
ten hours after we had received word of the Pearl Harbor at-
tack.

As nearly as I could determine, the situation was this:

The pursuit planes had been up patrolling in the morn-
ing, and the pilots had come down to eat and refuel their
planes all together, instead of a few at a time.

The bombers were on the ground because it would have
been impossible for them to fly around aimlessly while await-
ing orders to bomb objectives in Formosa or Hainan Island.

Such orders could not be issued in the Philippines because
we were not yet officially at war with Japan.

The planes were lined up in straight rows and not dis-
persed because our fliers had not had any experience and did
not understand the necessity for dispersal. Underground
hangars were being built, but were not yet finished.

Radio detecting equipment was inadequate.

Shortly after the Clark Field attack, I ran into some of the
survivors of the B-17 crews of the 19th Bombardment Squad-
ron, who said:

**That first day of the war we went up in the morning, got
our planes running perfectly, and then came down again. The
pursuits had also been up and had come down to refuel and
to let the pilots get lunch. For weeks we had expected that if
war came we would bomb southern Formosa. We knew jus:
where and what to hit.

''Right after lunch we pilots were called to the office. I
heard our commander. Colonel Eugene Eubank, arguing over
the telephone with someone in Manila. He was insisting that

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we be allowed to take off for Formosa, but apparently he
could not get an okay.

''Anyway, Eubank hung up the phone and turned to a
map on the wall. He was just pointing out our objectives on
Formosa when someone came running in. The messenger
shouted, 'The Japs will be here in twenty minutes.'

**We started to get out and get to our planes. Two minutes
later the bombs crashed down around us.

**We had about twelve heavy bombers left when it was all
over. We flew most of them down to the field at Del Monte,
on the island of Mindanao.

*Trom then on we were under the orders of General Wavell.
We heard several times that MacArthur begged for us to
come up and give his troops a hand durtng the early days of
Bataan, but instead Wavell sent us to attack the Japs at Bor-
neo and other islands once or twice. Then we were ordered
to Java, and then to Australia.'*

I questioned them further about why we were surprised at
Clark Field. That was one of the most crushing blows in the
whole Philippines campaign. It lost us any chance to gain air
control, and without air control we never had a chance to win.
"Then it is your impression," I asked, "that someone in
Manila headquarters ordered our planes to remain on the
ground?"

"That is what we understand," they said. "We were told that
we were forbidden to bomb Formosa because the Japs had
not yet attacked the Philippines, and perhaps did not intend
to. Inasmuch as the Philippines were a commonwealth and
not an integral part of the United States, we had to wait to be
attacked first."

That last part didn't add up to me, because many hours be-
fore the Clark Field bombing we knew that the Japs had
bombed Baguio and Aparri and Davao and many other points
in ^he Philippines. I told one of the high officers on Mac-
Arthur's staff what the pilots had said.

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"The truth is that as soon as MacArthur knew Japan had
attacked Pearl Harbor he ordered our pursuits into the air and
instructed that our bombers be dispersed to other fields, part
of them to Del Monte," the officer replied. ''Apparently those
orders went astray or at any rate were never carried out/'

Another factor in what happened at Clark Field was un-
doubtedly the fact that, at the time the Japs hit, we were not
officially at war with Japan. Congress did not declare war until
the following day. In the Philippines we knew that the Japs
had attacked Pearl Harbor but, from the record, even that did
not necessarily mean that we would go to war with them. They
had sunk the U.S.S. Panay near Nanking four years before and
no war had resulted. It seemed incredible, but there was always
a possibility that they could apologize for this attack too.

In any case, the disaster at Clark Field was another chapter
in the tragic story that shows we were not, as an army, navy or
nation, prepared militarily and psychologically for the shocks
of war. Even individuals had a hard time realizing it when they
came into combat for the first time.

On Bataan in January, Lieutenant L. E. McDaniel, who had
lost his plane and was attached to the anti-aircraft at that time,
told me more about the Clark Field raid.

**I was flying my P-40 from a field near Clark and was up on
patrol when the Japs came over. I saw a plane on my tail, way
back. When he first opened up and I saw the blue flashes of his
guns, I thought he was signaling to me. Then I snapped out of
it and got in there and fought him. The sky over Clark was
full of Jap planes and it looked like the entire field was on fire."

A pursuit pilot who had been at Iba Field, which was de-
signed as a pursuit field to protect the bombers flying from
Clark, told what happened there. "They caught us flat-footed.
Our warning system failed but the main thing was that we
were all green and inexperienced. The Jap high-level bombers
took one pass on their way to Clark. Then the fighters dove low
and strafed our parked planes. Naturally they were all lined

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up in pretty rows. We didn't know any better then. We never
had time to get one in the air. Only a few were still flyable after
the attack."

The pilots whose P-40's were still flyable, soon found out
that they wouldn't fly so well, that in a combat airplane there
is no substitute for soup— for power. The P-40-B, the model
they were flying, proved to be very much underpowered for
modern war conditions. It was far too heavy and unmaneuver-
able to dogfight a Zero, although it had a good score against the
Japanese Army's older type airplanes, the T96 and T97 in
Burma. The Zero was light and fast and it had the horses in its
engines to take it upstairs fast. It would turn twice while a P-40
turned once. The only advantage our planes had was greater
fire power and armor protection for the pilot.

The P-40 was useless against the high-altitude Jap bombers.
It would only climb 1,000 to 1,200 feet a minute when fully
loaded, if that, and the bombers would come over way up, at
between 20,000 and 30,000 feet. The P-40's never bothered
them.

Our pilots quickly learned not to dogfight. They found the
only chance they had was to take one pass at enemy planes and
keep on going down fast, using their weight and diving speed
to get away. They saw that the Japs had built a plane which
could outfly anything we had in the air and finding that out
made them very angry.

Those who lived through the early days of the war used to
come into the Manila Hotel in the evenings. '*It's high damn'
time our airplane manufacturers stopped wasting advertising
space trying to prove to our people that we have the world's
best airplanes," they said, ''and started producing them in-
stead. The Japs can't be convinced by those beautiful ads.
We've got to have more horsepower in our engines. We can't
fight them in those planes."

Even so, our pilots fought in the Philippines in the few
planes they had left.

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Through a mutual friend in Honolulu, I met Captain Colin
Kelly a few days before the war and he told me he had come out
to the Philippines prepared to fight. Before he left Hawaii to
ferry his B-17 out to Manila he spent three days studying the
data on the Japanese Mandated Islands and other Pacific
islands gathered by John Williams, a Honolulu newspaper
man. The B-17 s were to fly from Honolulu to Wake, and then
across the Japanese Mandated Islands at night and land at
Rabaul in New Britain. From there they were to go to Darwin
and then up to the Philippines.

For three days Kelly studied and made notes and copied
maps. When he had finished he stretched his long legs out in
front of his wicker chair and ran his big hands through his
thick black hair.

''We're sure in a hell of a fix out there, aren't we,'* he said,

*'What are you going to do about it?'* Williams asked.

**Well, Tm going out and bomb the first thing I see and blow
it to bits," said Kelly.

They started rehashing the old argument as to whether air-
planes could sink battleships. Kelly had some decided ideas
about that. He promised, **rm going to put an end to that
argument personally by sinking one of those Jap ships."

Kelly got his chance on December 1 1 and dropped his bombs
on the Japanese battleship Haruiia and left her blazing, al-
though, apparently, she did not sink.

On his way home two Zeros dropped out of a cloud and got
on the gunless tail of his plane and shot it up so badly that it
wobbled, on fire, toward the ground. Kelly stuck at the con-
trols until the rest of the crew had parachuted. Before he could
jump his plane exploded in the air.

Captain Jesus Villamor of the Philippine Air Force fought
too, in a nine-year-old plane that proved a better match for
the Zero than did the P-40. Villamor and six other members
of his squadron were flying P-26*s which the U.S. Army had
long decided were obsolete. Those were the only planes that

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MacArthur could get for the Philippine Air Force he was try-
ing to build*

Villamor, short and thick-set and a fine pilot, was a gradu-
ate of West Point and had learned to fly at Kelly Field and
Randolph Field, In the first two weeks of the war he flew his
P-26 so well that he won two Distinguished Service Crosses.
Once, with one of his two guns jammed, he tackled a formation
of thirty-six enemy bombers and brought down two of them.
Another time he tangled successfully with a cloud of Zeros.

All together Villamor and his squadron had about six air-
planes and they flew them as long as they held together— which
was about ten days. After the first few days they ran out of
ammunition for their machine guns and the pilots took the use-
less guns out of the ships, to lessen the weight, and flew them
on scouting missions. I saw a lot of Villamor and his fellow
pilots during the first three weeks of the war and many times,
at their request, I took out my notebook and wrote: "Try to
get the U.S. to send some decent planes out here quickly." I
wrote stories, too, but the censors killed them.

The young American pilots who still had P-40's performed
epic feats of heroism in the early days of the war. Lieutenant
Boyd Wagner became the ace of our Air Force, destroying
many Japanese planes in the air and on the ground at the air-
fields which the enemy quickly built in northern Luzon, Dur-
ing one such strafing attack, Buzz Wagner's wingman. Lieu-
tenant Russell M. Church, was hit by anti-aircraft fire over the
Jap field at Vigan. Church dived his burning plane over the
field and released his boilibs. Then he crashed, making no at-
tempt to jump out in his parachute. Even the Japanese were
impressed by his courage and determination and they honored
him with a hero's funeral.

Lieutenant Samuel H. Merett attacked Japanese transports,
landing troops in northern Luzon. He strafed the landing boats
and, when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire, dived into the
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up. Joseph Moore and Jack Dale, Carl Gies and Randolph
Keator, and a dozen other of our young pilots fought the Japs
in the air as long as they had planes.

By the time our forces completed their withdrawal into
Bataan on January i we had about ten P-40's still in fairly
good condition despite the terrific beating they had taken.
They operated from two runways which had been leveled off
in the rice fields on the southeastern tip of Bataan. Brigadier
General Harold George set up his headquarters in the woods
near one of the runways, and directed the mechanics who
nursed the planes along and the pilots who flew them.

The most planes that we ever had in the air at one time dur-
ing the battle of Bataan was six— five P-40's and an old Philip-
pine army biplane piloted by Captain Villamor. The five
pursuit ships escorted Villamor on a photographic mission over
Cavite, where the Japanese were installing artillery to shell
Corregidor. After Villamor landed safely the P-40 s tangled
with a flock of Japanese dive bombers.

I saw the fight in the air over Bataan and Manila Bay and I
remember the USAFFE communique on that engagement.
"Our planes shot down six enemy planes and damaged three
more. We lost one plane." That sounded like a victory and it
was. But the loss of one P-40 left us only four, and we had no
replacements coming. General George treasured and hoarded
his planes, trying to save them for occasional decisive actions,
but one by one they were shot down or damaged on the ground
by Jap bombs, or simply wore out.

It was a great occasion for our troops when they saw one of
our planes in the air. But nobody saw the planes the night they
carried out one of their most audacious actions. The pilots
were angered at the daily poundings they were taking from
Japanese planes based at Nichols Field, where only a few weeks
before our fliers had lived in comfortable quarters. Without
orders from USAFFE, the pilots worked out a plan to bomb
Manila. They rigged bombs on the three P-40's which were in

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flying condition that night and took oflE one evening late in
January. They flew in to Manila and bombed and strafed the
Japanese planes on the ground at Nichols and Zablan airfields.

Some of our intelligence agents were in Manila that night
and on their return to Corregidor they told us that the raid
spread panic among the Japanese, who threw down their guns
and ran into homes, seeking shelter under beds and tables. The
Filipinos rushed into the streets and cheered. Some of them
dug up their rifles and bolos they had buried and got ready to
slaughter the Japs. They thought our counteroffensive had
started at last.

It was a tremendous let-down when the raid was not re-
peated.

In another night attack with rigged-up bombs and with
machine guns our planes helped drive off a Japanese force at-
tempting to land on the west coast of Bataan late in January;
and again in March, when the Japanese were putting troops
ashore in Subic Bay for their final overwhelming assault on our
lines, the planes dived on their vessels and sank or damaged
six ships, including a large transport. They showed what could
have been done all over Luzon if we had had enough planes.

Most of our Air Corps troops fought without planes. The
trained pilots and expert mechanics and skilled bombardiers
were given rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades and fought
for their lives on the ground in Bataan. Among them was the
entire personnel of an army attack-bomber squadron. They ar-
rived in the Philippines on the President Coolidge about two
weeks before the war. Their fifty-four planes— planes which
might have made a decisive difference in the battle of Luzon—
never arrived. The planes were within four days of Manila on
an army freighter on December 7. Someone ordered the ship to
turn around and it eventually got to Java,

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At NOON on Wednesday, December lo, Manila got its
first close up of the Japanese Air Force.

The planes were almost overhead when we saw them from
our office on the third floor of the TVT building. We looked
out the window and there they were, flying high and straight
in, from the north. We counted them. There were fifty-four in
three tight "V s," the whole formation making one big '*V."
Their wings were silver in the noonday sun and they were
barely distinguishable against the white wisps of clouds far up
in the blue sky. Seeing how high the planes were flying we real-
ized the Japs knew all about the use of oxygen for the crews of
high-altitude bombers.

I jumped over the city editor's desk and onto the fire escape
which led to the roof. I got up a few rungs on the iron ladder
and suddenly found it difficult to hold on. My knees w^ere doing
a combination jitterbug-rhumba. We didn't know whether the
Japs were going to bomb the whole city or concentrate on defi-
nite targets, and in either case the TVT newspapers, which had
been extremely antagonistic to Japan, were a legitimate target.

I finally made the top and looked down on the surrounding
wooden buildings, each of them a firetrap. From the roof of a
near-by building a .50-caliber machine gun started chattering.
Rifles crackled from the streets, although the planes were far
above the range of any ordinary anti-aircraft gun, to say noth-
ing of rifles. Then black puffs blossomed high in the sky and I
looked down toward the bay front where my new friends of the
previous night, Sergeant Smith and Corporal Davis and the
others, were firing their 37-mm. guns. But their shells were
bursting at 10,000 feet, only halfway up to the planes.

Most of the people in the TVT editorial and press rooms
had run down to the first floor when we shouted that the planes
were in sight. Down in an alley alongside the building a bunch

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of newsboys were unconcernedly pitching pennies against a
wall. The police were having difficulty keeping the crowds off
the streets. After the first raids, when the people saw the Japs
weren't bombing the center of the city, it became even more
difficult, and in the TVT and other offices the workers kept on
with their jobs during attacks.

The planes went right on past, out of sight, into the sun.
There were distant, fairly loud, explosions. I got down from
the roof and went to the rear of the building. From a window
I saw fires in the direction of Nichols Field and Fort McKinley.
The smoke was black and fierce, and the flames were high, and
it looked as if the gasoline dumps had been hit.

The planes turned out over the bay and were lost to view.
Fifteen minutes later from the direction of Cavite, we saw
smoke, and knew that the naval base was being attacked.

Inside the TVT people asked, Where are our fighters, sir?
Why do they not attack the Japs?" We couldn't see any fighters
in the air.

Jack Percival, the Australian reporter, and I climbed into a
car and sped through the center of the city and out Dewey
Boulevard along the bay.

Two tremendous fires were burning in Cavite, punctuated
by explosions. But from the distance of nine miles across the
water it was impossible to distinguish individual buildings or
tell whether the naval base itself or the town had been hit. We
saw one mine sweeper speeding in toward Cavite. It seemed to
be running right into the the flame and smoke.

We went on out to Nichols Field and drove through back
roads to the nearest fire. Nipa shacks were burning hotly, while
their occupants aided the firemen in trying to put out the
flames. Nipa, which is coconut fiber, throws up a dense black
smoke when it burns and very much resembles an oil fire, and
this fact caused frequent reports and rumors that oil dumps
around Manila had been hit by bombs when actually the
bombs had missed their targets and landed in Filipino villages.

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In the large grounds o£ an American-owned estate there was
a deep crater thirty feet wide behind the servants' quarters. On
the lawn a five-year-old Filipino girl was lying, her abdomen
ripped open by bomb fragments. Her father was bandaging a
wound in his leg. ''Those damn Japs, sir, have killed my baby/'
he said. Nobody was crying or showing signs of grief.

The homes of Americans on Harrison Boulevard had also
been hit. Bombs seemed to do more damage to buildings of
concrete and steel than to the nipa shacks on stilts. Frequently,
part of a shack would be torn away by a direct hit and half of
it would still be standing. There were bomb craters in the
Elizaldes' polo field, across from Nichols Field.

At Nichols Field no damage had been done to our planes
or hangars or barracks. We saw several planes that had been
ruined the night before by a direct hit on a hangar, but most
of them were old Martin B-i8's, twin-engined bombers which
had been on their last wings even before the war started.

Neither the Army nor Navy would give us any details about
the bombing of Cavite, except to intimate that it had been
"very bad." Russell Brines, who lived on Dewey Boulevard
near Nichols Field and facing the bay, had seen two dogfights
in which Jap planes were shot down. They belonged to a
fighter escort accompanying the bombers and they dived on
the airfields and strafed our fighters in an attempt to pin them
to the ground. Despite those excellent tactics, a few of our
fighters got into the air and fought successfully. Brines, his
wife, and daughter had spent an hour crouched behind the sea-
wall in front of their home, sheltered from machine-gun bul-
lets fired by the planes zooming above their heads, and from
shell fragments from the anti-aircraft guns at Cavite.

One U.S. Marine fighter pilot had succeeded in taking off
from the field at Cavite, but had been riddled with bullets
before he was five hundred feet up.

That night I learned of the sinking of the British battleships
Repulse and Prince of Wales, under command of Admiral Sir

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Tom Phillips, off Malaya. Jap torpedo planes and dive bomb-
ers had gotten them, and I recalled the party in Hongkew when
the Japanese captain said, "If your ships come out here, we
will dive into them and sink them with bombs and torpedoes/'

General MacArthur told me additional details about the
sinking of those ships several weeks later on Corregidor, and,
as he told it, it seemed that Phillips had lost his ships in a
magnificent gamble, and not through any blunder. MacArthur
always referred to our Japanese enemy as "the Jap."

"The morning of December 8," MacArthur said, "Tom
Phillips telephoned me from Singapore. He told me the Jap
was approaching Malaya in eighty ships. He said he was going
out and get in among them and sink them. That was his only
chance to save Malaya, since the British didn't have the forces
to stop an invasion once the Jap landed.

"Tom Phillips said he was going out without an air um-
brella, but he had to take the chance. The weather was over-
cast and if it would remain that way, the Jap could not use his
air.

"Tom Phillips steamed out of Singapore and headed north
and a little east. He steamed for nearly forty hours and the sky
remained overcast. Then the Jap sighted him through a hole
in the clouds and just two hours before he would have been in
among the Jap Fleet, the weather cleared.

"He wired for air assistance but the Jap dive bombers and
torpedo planes hit him and in a few minutes his ships were
wrecked and burning.

"The first British fighter planes arrived overhead just as
Tom Phillips was sliding down his bridge into the sea."

It wasn't until four days after Cavite had been bombed that
we learned how damaging the attack had been. On Sunday,
Rear Admiral Rockwell summoned us to Cavite, where he was
stationed as commander of the i6th U.S. Naval District. He
wouldn't let us inside the base to see the damage but received
us at the entrance, inside of thick, Spanish-built walls. Rock-

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well was tall with a stiflE white pompadour. His face was tanned,
lined, and strained.

''The bombing was accurate and devastating," he said. **It
was perfectly planned and executed. The planes divided into
four groups and flew systematically over our heads from east,
south, west, and north. They hit the fire station and the power
plant, which made it difficult to fight fires. The firemen who
were in the streets after the raid were machine-gunned by
fighter planes, and everyone was killed.

**One bomb hit the dispensary and killed everybody in it.
However, we are still able to operate.

"I am proud of our American naval and civilian personnel
and of the Filipinos. They conducted themselves magnificently,
as did our nurses."

Admiral Rockwell said, "We found out that if you get down
and keep down, preferably in a shallow trench, you are safe
from anything but a direct hit. Even direct hits within a rela-
tively few feet won't harm you, as the shrapnel spreads out
and up. It is not pleasant, but it's safe." He did not give us the
casualty figures, but we understood that some six hundred
sailors and officers and civilian personnel were either killed or
wounded.

The week after the first bombing the Japs went back to
Cavite again. I saw the whole raid through a telescope from
the Manila waterfront with the boys of the 200th, who had
meantime moved their guns from the Luneta to positions di-
rectly on the bay in the park between the Manila Hotel and the
Army and Navy Club.

This time the attack lasted even longer and the fires were
even fiercer. At least one oil tank was hit and burned for days.
At night its flames lighted the entire bay. Through the glasses
I saw one of the three giant radio towers at Cavite topple and
crash from a direct hit. Again destroyers were buzzing around
just outside the flames.

The boys of the 200th asked, ''Where are our fighters?"

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I didn't know.

I told them their 37-mm. guns were shooting far under the
Jap planes. They answered, "These guns are for use against
dive bombers. They won't shoot over ten thousand feet. We
clocked those babies as they went over just now at close to
thirty thousand feet. The Japs certainly have a good bomb-
sight and know all about using oxygen.

'*The best we can do is to keep them up fairly high."

Keeping them up seemed to help a little.

The Japs bombed the twenty-two ships anchored in the
harbor, all in a line. They cruised up and down the line three
or four times. We saw the big fountains of water spout up.
After it was over one ship was sinking fast, and another was on
fire. There had been only one direct hit.

After that the ships were scattered over the bay to present
less of a target and those with passengers aboard came in and
unloaded. One of the ships tried to make a run for it to a
southem island in the Philippines. It was the S,S. Corregidor,
now an interisland steamer but formerly His British Majesty's
ship the Engadine and as such the first seaplane carrier in his-
tory. The Engadine had survived the battle of Jutland. As the
Corregidor it was less fortunate. Trying to sneak through the
mine fields oflE the island of Corregidor on December 17 it hit
one of our own mines and exploded and sank within a matter
of seconds. Three hundred were saved by PT boats and other
vessels from Corregidor Island, but five hundred persons, in-
cluding many prominent Philippine political figures, lost their
lives.

Most of the other ships successfully negotiated the mine
fields, with the assistance of pilot boats, and made it through
to Singapore, Java, or India, and then to relatively safe waters.

But they went out without passengers, including the China
coastal vessel, xheAnhwei, whose three hundred British women
and children were put ashore at Manila where they later went
to the internment camp.

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lOWARD the end of the first week there was a brief lull in
air attacks. We thought maybe the Japs were concentrating on
Hong Kong, intending to knock it out before tackling Manila;
but later we learned that they had been moving their planes
from Formosa down to bases on northern Luzon, at Aparri and
other points.

We kept asking each other, "Why doesn't our Air Force
knock them out?" Even after hearing the stories of Clark Field,
I still thought we had planes at other fields— and so did our
soldiers.

When they got their bases set up the Japs came back to
Manila again. They came almost every day, usually at noon
when the sun was directly overhead and their targets were un-
shadowed.

Their bombing was erratic. Sometimes they hit their targets
on the nose as they did at Cavite. Other times they would miss
by as much as a couple of miles. They concentrated on Nichols
Field and Fort McKinley, which was the barracks for Amer-
ican troops in Manila, on Zablan Field where the midget
Philippine Air Force was based, and on the dock area. They
didn't waste bombs on hospitals, churches, or schools.

I developed a routine for covering the bombings, after we
had worked out a schedule for the office. Cronin worked from
6 A.M. to 6 P.M.; my shift was from 1 1 A.M. to 1 1 P.M., and
Brines from 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. At least, that was the schedule,
but actually each of us worked about twenty hours daily. I'd
get up at ten in the morning and shave and have breakfast in
the hotel, then pick up the eleven o'clock USAFFE communi-
que from Major Diller or from Major Carlos Romulo, pub-
lisher of the DMHM newspapers, who was appointed to Mac-
Arthur's staff after the beginning of the wan

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I immediately began a private war with Romulo. His papers
were clients of the United Press, our rival news agency, and
several times his papers published news in advance of the offi-
cial communiques. I suspected that Rommy was a newspaper-
man first and an officer afterward and that through his papers
the United Press was gaining access to official news before its
release to the rest of us*

After several such instances I complained to Major Diller
about it in the presence of Rommy, saying, "Major, there seems
to be a leak and it seems to be right in your office." Diller
promised, **We'll check up on that." Rommy, with a twinkle
in his eye, added, 'Tes, Clark, we will certainly look into it."

When I got the morning communiques, Td take them over
to the Press Wireless office in the Crystal Arcade and file them
and then go on to our office.

The siren would usually sound about noon. Td say, **Come
on, Joe," to our photographer.

We would run down the stairs of the TVT building, sprint
150 yards to an alley which led to the back of the Avenue
Hotel, the biggest building in that section of the city, and then
run up seven flights of stairs taking two steps at a time. The
elevators stopped during raids. That running and climbing
proved good conditioning for what was to come later.

The planes usually came from the north. They would circle
over Nichols and Zablan, and drop a half-dozen or dozen
bombs. Sometimes they would attack the docks.

We watched from the Avenue s seventh-floor roof garden.
The first day I went clear up to the top of the water tower with
Joe, but soldiers in the streets mistook us for fifth columnists
and cut loose with their rifles. We crawled around the water
tank, dropped down to the roof and then to the roof garden
itself. Whenever the planes came over the soldiers would fire
at them with rifles and machine guns and revolvers, even when
they were at 25,000 feet.

From the top of the Avenue Hotel the city sprawled beneath

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us in a panorama of color and beauty. The modem buildings
along the water front loomed high against the blue background
of the bay, and to the east the city trickled off to the foothills
in streams of tinted roofs.

We had lots of company on the hotel roof garden. For
several days I watched the raids with W. H. Donald, the Aus-
tralian newspaperman who had been Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek's adviser in China for many years.

Donald said, **This reminds me of the first days of this same
war back in Nanking in 1937, when we watched bombers like
these wreck China's capital."

Donald had left China six months before with the intention
of writing his memoirs.

* 'Chiang Kai-shek kept wiring me in Tahiti to come back
to Chungking. I temporized, but he was insistent so I went up
to Honolulu and caught a freighter, the Don JosS. We were
four days out of Manila when the Japs attacked you here, but
we kept coming and made it all right."

I suggested to Donald, "Why not get in touch with General
MacArthur and see if he can't get you on to Singapore by air-
plane."

**ril take my chances here," he answered. "If necessary, I will
take to the hills later on." I did not see him again.

The photographer and I would watch where the bombs fell,
and then run back down the stairs and over to the office and
get our car and go out.

One day at Nichols Field we were stopped at the gate and
then escorted around by a sweat-soaked sergeant of the Air
Corps. From the city it had looked as if Nichols was badly hit,
but the flames and smoke were from a single gasoline truck
and from an officer's home and a corner of the barracks.

The sergeant was still shaking from the excitement of battle.
He'd been firing a .30-caliber machine gun at the enemy

"For Christ's sake," he said, "you people are reporters; tell

planes.

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the people back home to send us some anti-aircraft guns and
some airplanes that'll fight those Jap fighters and climb high
enough to knock down those bombers. All we can do now is sit
here and take it and it's a hell of a lousy situation. Tell them
this isn't only our war, it's the war of every American."

At his insistence, I took out my notebook and wrote, **Try to
impress Roosevelt and Washington that we must have planes
here!" The book, by that time, had many such notations.

Another day Russell Brines and I reached Zablan Field as the
dust from the bombs was still settling. Under the trees divid-
ing the field from the Wack Wack golf course we met Colonel
Backus, American commander of the Philippine Air Force, and
a group of his officers. One of them was Captain Villamor.

The colonel said only two men had been killed in the raid.
*'Both of them failed to duck, or get down in a foxhole, and
were cut to pieces."

He showed us a fragment of the Jap bombs, a wickedly
jagged, shining piece of the casing, about a foot long.

"When the bombs burst, they throw out the casing frag-
ments like whirling saws that cut to pieces any man they hit."

One old B-io, out in front of the hangars, was still on fire,
and the pilots were laughing about it. It had been wrecked in
a landing a month before the war, but the Japanese pilots dive-
bombed it.

I asked, "How big is the Philippine Air Force?"

''There it is," was the reply. "Those four old P-26's scattered
around the field. We have one other like it, and a couple of
Beechcraf t. One of them is going to take General George Brett
to Mindanao.'*

Later General Brett's pilot took off from a highway in the
Beechcraft and landed safely in Mindanao. Then the general
got a bomber to the Netherlands East Indies where he served
as Air Force commander before going to Australia.

Everybody we talked to who had been in a bombing and

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narrowly missed being killed seemed badly shaken. No one was
casual about it.

I couldn't understand it at first. I thought that if you hap-
pened to be in an area where the planes were bombing, yon
would just watch until they came near and then duck into a
foxhole or gutter and lie there calmly until it was all over. It
you got a near miss you'd just say like the nonchalant British,
Rather close that one, whatl"

Stories about bombings, whether told by word of mouth or
written, don't include the sound effects and the sound is what
makes bombing terrifying. That and the fact that there is no
way to defend yourself against bombs and no way to fight back
against the planes that are dropping them. I learned this
through personal experience.

The people of Manila were taking the bombing well. With
the exception of those who had been shell-shocked by near
misses, they were more puzzled than scared— puzzled that our
Air Force was not keeping the bombers away from the city or
at least making some show of tangling with the bombers. It was
grim to S2e the enemy planes cruising overhead, far above the
anti-aircraft bursts, and taking their time to pick their targets.

The Americans in Manila were beginning to sense that
something was wrong. The USAFFE communiques were
worded optimistically, but not much fighting seemed to be
going on. If the Asiatic Fleet was in action, we didn't know it,
and the Army didn't seem to be doing anything to chase the
Japs out of their air bases on Luzon.

In the Manila Hotel there were still nightly dances in the
blacked-out, air-conditioned dining room. Lunch was served
in the big outdoor restaurant right on the water front and the
more carefree of the guests could sit there, eating and drink-
ing, and watch the bombs falling around Pier 7, only a couple
of hundred yards away.

Many preferred to sit out the raids in the small, low-ceil-

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inged, dark-paneled taproom. There was so much noise in-
side that even with the bombers overhead it was difficult to
hear them. Bombs falling within a quarter of a mile made only

To the Americans and English people living in the Manila
Hotel the greatest annoyance was the nervous watchmen as-
signed to enforce the blackout. If you lit a cigarette in your
rooms a bullet from a 45 revolver or a .30-30 carbine might
come whistling through the window and plunk into the ceiling.
The only light in the rooms was a dim blue bulb in the bath-
room. Even when the whole city was lighted by fires from oil
tanks or buildings ignited by Jap bombs, the blackout guards
at the hotel discharged their duties— and their guns— con-
scientiously.

The Americans in the hotel adopted the anti-aircraft men of
the 200th New Mexico National Guard. They would load their
arms with sandwiches and soft drinks and stumble through the
darkness across the Lunetta to the gun emplacements. Then
they would chat for several hours with the gun crews, recall-
ing their own experiences in the last war and p:issin:r around
cigarettes and listening while the youngsters told stories of
their own homes. When the boys from the guns weren't busy
firing at Jap planes they would come into the hotel to get their
hair cut or have a coke or a sandwich.

One evening, a week after the war had started, we sat around
a table in the hotel and talked things over. Most of them
thought the Japs would go for Singapore and not attempt a
major invasion of the Philippines. They were optimists.

The General Motors man had the best news of all. "This is
confidential, but it comes from a high source. There are two
American aircraft carriers off Corregidor. They'll be here
within a few days/'

Chappie, who had bet there wouldn't be any war, had heard
that one too. He bet drinks for the crowd that the reports were
true.

a faint whoomph inside.

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All of them said, "We were in the last war, some in the
Army and some in the Navy. We'd like to get in this one.
We've been around to Army Headquarters but nobody seems
to know what to do about us."

I said, ''Look, you fellows. This may be fifth columnism.
But here's the way I've got it figured out and I've been talking
to everybody in town. You all heard Sayre's frantic appeal for
help today in which he said 'Time is of the essence 1' Pearl
Harbor has stunned us. Wake Island is the tip-off. We have
planes that can fly easily from Midway to Wake to give those
Marines a hand. Our ships could have reached there by now
to fight off those Japs.

''But we're back on our heels, now. Most of our admirals
are punch drunk. We have lost our old dash and recklessness.
The U.S. is going to play this thing slowly and cautiously and
take no chances. This means they are going to let us go out

Chappie laughed at me. He was a fountain of rumors and
optimistic reports in those days. "The Lexington is off the
coast," he said. "We are getting planes tomorrow."

In those splendid rumors that planes were on the way it was
always the Lexington that was bringing them. Probably be-
cause she was our best-known aircraft carrier.

After I saw MacArthur for the first time I tried to force my-
self to believe that maybe, after all, the Lexington was on the
way. I hadn't seen him before because I was constantly on the
move getting first-hand stories of the bombing, and he didn't
have time to attend the press meetings.

MacArthur didn't speak. He just walked with long strides
through the room at No. i Victoria where we were waiting for
the press communique, and up the stairs to his office.

He nodded confidently to us on the way past. His gold-
braided cap was tilted jauntily. His shoulders were back. He
was smoking a cigarette in a long holder, and swinging a cane.

here.

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He looked so young that I nearly asked, "Is that MacArthur
or his chief of staff, General Sutherland?"

Then I saw the four silver stars gleaming on the shoulder of
his neatly pressed shirt.

He looked completely sure of himself. He looked like a man
who couldn't lose.

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N DECEMBER lo the Japanese landed at Aparri on
the north coast of Luzon, 250 miles from Manila, and at Vigan
on the northeast coast, 200 miles from the capital. They sent
a few boats in to land at Lingayen Gulf but they were driven
away. Then they landed in force at Legaspi, southeast ot
Manila on December 13. (See map on page 157.)

The first news of the Japanese landing at Legaspi came from
the stationmaster who telephoned the Manila railroad's cen-
tral office. From there the call was switched over to USAFFE
headquarters.

Stationmaster: "There are four Jap boats in the harbor, sir,
and the Japs are landing. What shall I do?**

USAFFE officer: **Just hang onto the phone and keep report-
ing.-

Stationmaster: "There are about twenty Japs ashore already,
sir, and more are coming." A pause. "Now there are about
three hundred Japs outside the station, sir. What am I to do?"

USAFFE officer: 'Just sit tight."

Stationmaster: **Sir, a few of those Japs, with an officer in
front, are coming over here."

USAFFE officer: ''See what they want."

Stationmaster: "Those Japs want me to give them a train
to take them to Manila, sir. What do I do now?"

USAFFE officer: "Tell them the next train leaves a week
from Sunday. Don't give it to them!"

Stationmaster, hanging up, "Okay, sir."

The landing at Legaspi sent us scurrying for our maps again.
We saw that to reach Manila the Japs would have to cross the
swampy and mountainous narrow neck of Luzon southeast of
Manila and we heard that the only crossing was over the rail-
way bridge which was being blown up.

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Neither then nor later did the USAFFE communiques tell
much about the war in southern Luzon. I asked an officer at
headquarters about a report that, within a few days of their
landing, the Japanese had advanced forty miles inland.

He said, '*To tell you the truth we don't know much about
it. Our communications are not so good down there."

The best source of information about what was happening
in the south proved to be Don Alejandro Roces, owner of the
TVT newspapers. White-haired, tall, red-complexioned Don
Alejandro had a friend who was manager of the Manila rail-
way and whose station agents kept him informed of the Jap
movements. He never tired of telling a story about die day
Dewey's fleet sailed into Manila Bay.

He had been standing on the bay front where the Manila
Hotel is now located. '*Near by was a group of aristocratic old
officials of the Spanish colonial regime. They said to me, 'Young
man, whose ships are those far out in the bay?* I replied, 'Those
are American ships, senores' They said, 'Nonsense, boy, your
young eyes deceive you. Surely you can make out the Spanish

"I said, 'Senores, the flag is that of the United States of
America.*

"They became extremely indignant. 'Well,* they said, 'we
do not believe you. But if that is the American flag, by the Holy
Mother we will never let it sail out of this harbor again.'

"And," Don Alejandro would chuckle, "so faithfully did
they keep their word that the American flag is still flying over
Manila today, some forty-four years later."

The flag was not to fly much longer. Following the occupa-
tion of Manila by the Japanese, Don Alejandro's TVT news-
papers—the English language Tribune, Spanish Vanguardia,
and Tagalog dialect Taliba—were the only ones to continue
to publish. They printed Japanese official announcements and
abandoned their editorial pages. The Tribune's editor, Dave

flag;

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Boguslav, was locked under ''special detention" in Santo
Tomis University, together with Roy Bennett of the Bulletin
and Ford Wilkins, Bulletin city editor and New York Times

Perhaps Don Alejandro decided, from the depths of his ex-
perience, that the Japanese flag would fly over Manila for some
time and that he might as well make the best of things and

Shortly after their landing at Legaspi, the Japanese put
large forces ashore at Atimonan and Mauban, also on the east
coast of Luzon, but farther north and nearer to Manila.

One Filipino soldier arrived in Manila from Mauban. He
had been captured by the Japanese, who broke his foot by
smashing it with a rifle butt, but he had escaped anyway.

He said, **Our forces were dug in on the beach at Mauban
and were fighting very well with machine guns. We killed
many Japs. But then their airplanes came over and killed many
of us in our trenches. Where are our own airplanes, sir?"

He reported that the Japanese moved with lightning speed.
From Mauban the road climbed steeply upward in a zigzag
to a mountain pass leading toward Manila, but within four
hours after their first landing the Japanese had brought trucks
ashore and had already reached the top of the pass. They came
in fast from Atimonan too.

I was at USAFFE headquarters when two young Filipino
soldiers came in. An officer asked, **Where did you come
from?"

'Trom Legaspi, sir."

"Legaspi! How did you get here and where are your guns?"

"Our officer told us to withdraw, sir, so we withdrew to
Manila. Our guns were very heavy and we threw them away.
Our homes are here, sir, and we have been to see our families.
We are now reporting for duty."

"How long have you been in the army?"

correspondent.

keep on doing business.

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''About ten days, sir."

*'Okay, you can take your uniforms ofiF and leave them here
and go home and stay with your families."

Two other youngsters came in from northern Luzon. "We
were on outpost duty, sir,'* they said, "when some Japs came
near us. If we had stayed there those Japs would have killed us,
sir. So we retired to Manila."

That happened time and again in the first two weeks of the
war and witnessing incidents like that we began to see Mac-
Arthur's problem and to understand why the communique
were guardedly reporting Japanese advances and not much
fighting.

The trained Filipino soldiers who saw the Japs land in the
south did not think much of the enemy. Some of the prisoners
who fell into our hands were youngsters of about 18. They said
they thought they were being sent on maneuvers and had no
idea that Japan had gone to war with the United States or that
they were to attack the Philippines. Our Filipino troops re-
ported the Japanese were raggedly clad; some wore big civilian
caps, some "baseball caps"— which actually were the uniform
of the Japanese infantry; only a few had steel helmets and
many of our troops were hit by their .25 rifle bullets and lived
to tell the tale.

The story, as we got it in snatches then and later on, was
that there was not much fighting to the south and east of
Manila. We had very few troops there and they were quickly
outnumbered and forced to withdraw or be annihilated. Our
forces at Legaspi withdrew to the north under orders. When
they passed the narrow neck of Luzon and proceeded toward
Manila they found the roads already blocked by Japanese who
had come overland in trucks and on bicycles from Mauban and
Atimonan. On orders, the American officers disbanded their
recently recruited troops and with a few Filipino Scouts made
their way as best possible through the enemy lines. Some of
them reached Corregidor after January 1, by which time the

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siege of Bataan had begun and the enemy were in control of
most of the main highways in Luzon.

There were some isolated patrol contacts in the south, mostly
delaying actions fought by small groups of our forces.

It seemed that Mac Arthur sent some of his men to the south
in an effort to check the Japanese advance. On Sunday, De-
cember 20, we saw many light tanks going south through
Manila. One of them stalled near the Jones Bridge over the
Pasig River while Brines and I were having a sandwich in
Ben's restaurant near by. We went out and talked to the crew
of the tank. Some of them were from Minnesota, others from
Kentucky. They had been at Clark Field during the Japanese
attack and only that morning had been ordered south. They
understood that a big battle was to be fought a few miles south
of Manila.

On December 25, some of the tanks went into action near
Lucena, 60 miles south and east of Manila. Sergeant Robert
Mitchell of Salinas, California, who was wounded by shrapnel,
told me about it later on Corregidor where he was in the
hospital.

**We met our own forces on Christmas morning," Mitchell
said. "A Filipino major was in charge. He told us we were to
lead a company of infantry in an attack which was intended to
check the Japanese advance. As far as he knew, the Japanese
had no anti-tank guns.

"The attack was to be made along a curving road through
rice fields. The Japanese were in the hills about a half mile
from the bend in the road.

'*We started down the road in six tanks, with a group of in-
fantry behind each tank.

**As we rounded the bend, an anti-tank gun in the hill
opened fire.

**The first shot was a bull's-eye on our first tank. It was
knocked off the road into the rice fields. The second one hit
my tank squarely. The mechanism became jammed in reverse

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and we backed off the road into the fields. The third shot hit
the third tank. The others managed to turn around and get
away.

"We crawled over to the first tank and found our com-
mander. Lieutenant Noli of Salinas, badly wounded in both
legs. He said, 'Go on, boys, this is as far as Fm going.' But we
stayed there and made him as comfortable as possible until he

"Nearly all of us in the first three tanks were wounded, many
of us from rivets which the shells knocked loose. We hope
they build the new tanks without rivets.*'

Mitchell and five or six others hid from the Japs and eventu-
ally got back to Manila and Corregidor. In a Manila hospital
they left one of their companions, who had been wounded by
a rivet through his throat.

Apparently, after that abortive attack, there was not much
more fighting in the south. From December 26 on we noted in
Manila that the trucks and busses and guns which had been
rumbling past the city every night to the south had suddenly
turned around and were headed north.

We couldn't find out where they were going nor could we
determine what our forces were doing.

Don Alejandro Roces kept in constant communication from
the TVT building with his friend in the railway and gave us
all the available information about the Japanese advance. One
or two Americans succeeded in getting through from mines
and plantations in southeastern Luzon. They told us that the
Japanese were coming fast without much opposition and that
our troops were withdrawing toward Manila.

About December 30 the Japanese passed the last blown-out
railway and highway bridge and were within forty miles of the
capital. They had apparently expected the bridges to be de-
stroyed, because they carried complete equipment for crossing
ravines. They had guns which shot heavy iron arrows, with
ropes attached, across the gaps. Soldiers pulled themselves hand

died.

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over hand across the ropes and within a few hours the Japanese
had built bridges and their main forces were crossing.

The Japanese obviously didn't know it because they waited
outside the city until January 2, but from December 31 on
there was nothing between them and Manila but a few miles of
excellent highway.

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IHE same day that we saw the tanks going south through
Manila, I determined to go up north to Clark Field and in-
vestigate for myself whether or not we still had an Air Force.
I still thought we did— despite what had happened on the first
day of the war— and couldn't understand why it wasn't attack-
ing the Japanese transports and landing parties.

I arranged with a Spanish-Filipino university graduate in
his early twenties, whom I shall call Carlos, that he drive me
out in his automobile, a fairly new Ford sedan that was in good
shape. He wanted to see the war and asked only money for
gasoline. A Filipino reporter named Juan thought he wanted
to come along too-
Next morning, on Monday, December 22, 1 went to USAFFE
headquarters to pick up the morning communique before
starting out. Major Diller kept us waiting a few minutes and
then came down and stood on the stairs. He ran his hand
nervously over his bald head.

He said, ''Ladies,"— the ladies being Annalee Whitmore
Jacoby and Mrs. Arch Royal Gunnison, both the wives of
correspondents— "and gentlemen. I have a bulletin here for
you. I shall pass it out. There is no additional information and
no comment."

The bulletin was brief and startling. It said that an enemy
flotilla of eighty transports and warships had been sighted
early that morning off Lingayen Gulf, headed for the shore.
Everybody breathed a little faster. We ran for our cars and
rushed for the wireless offices to get off urgent flashes to New
York. But first I had a word with Diller.

In my story I reported that the Army made it clear "there
was no doubt this was the beginning of Japan's major drive
on the Philippines."

80

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I went up to our office and told Ray Cronin, ''The Japs
aren't going to by-pass this flank after all/'

"Well, at least," Cronin said, "they are hitting us where we
are most ready for them. Our defense plan has been prepared
for years. I understand that the south shore of Lingayen Gulf
is strongly protected with barbed wire, trenches, and heavy
field artillery. We have a flock of tanks at Stotsenberg. It is a
defense in depth."

I said, "I'm going up to Clark Field anyway and have a look
at our Air Force, if any, and try to find out what chance we
have of stopping them. If we don't have any planes left, we
haven't got a hope in hell."

Carlos and Juan and I finally got away shortly after noon.
Just as we stepped into the car the air alarm sounded. We de-
bated momentarily whether to stay and cover the raid or get
going. We decided to go on. We drove out Rizal Avenue at
fifty miles an hour, passing the cars and horse-drawn vehicles
which had pulled over to the side of the street, and left the
wailing siren behind. We saw the dive bombers plunging low
over Zablan Field, and then circling in strafing runs.

The Japs were wasting bombs and bullets, because as we
already knew there were no planes left at Zablan.

Manila ended abruptly, except for scattered homes and small
factories. We stopped outside the city and fastened a big card-
board placard with the word "PRESS" to the radiator with
adhesive tape. But the wind soon blew the tape loose and we
didn't bother to put it on again. The road headed straight
north, through level rice fields. Up on the right loomed
Mt. Arayat, with the mountains of Zambales on the left. That
was the country of the tiny Negritos, whose king had brought
in three trussed-up Japanese aviators to Stotsensberg a few days
before and had sworn a blood feud against the enemy.

Those mountains looked reassuring. "The Japs can't land
on the west coast there and climb over those mountains," I
said. "They'll have to come right down the middle from

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Lingayen, through this flat country and the plains of Pangas-
inan Province, and squarely into our defenses."

The Filipinos along the road had heard news of the landing
at Lingayen and they apparently thought we were reinforce-
ments for the front, because they waved at us and held up their
hands, with their first two fingers separated in the V-for-
Victory sign. There were Filipino sentries every few miles
along the road, and air raid wardens in each village. Numerous
times they stopped us by blowing whistles, and we got under
the trees or sheltered in ditches as Jap planes passed overhead.
The Japs strafed various parts of the road throughout that
day, but we missed all the attacks.

When the first enemy planes roared low over us Juan de-
cided that he had made a mistake in coming, and with every
mile he became more frightened. That afternoon, for the first
time, I heard the sentence that he was to repeat at least a
thousand times in the next four days: T\l never forget his voice,
tremulous with panic, 'Xeeeeee. Let us go back.*' Carlos and I
laughed at him and I said, "Juan, que nos maten si puedan,
pero no vayamos a morir de miedo/' The Spanish is probably
bad, but what I meant was, "Let's not die of fright before we
ever see a Jap."

After so many years of traveling through China s dusty,
dirty landscapes I enjoyed the ride through the clean country-
side. The rice had been cut and was stacked in the fields. We
passed one large town, San Fernando, but the only other settle-
ments were small villages of fifty or sixty nipa huts, with one
or two frame buildings.

In an hour and a half we reached Tarlac, capital of Tarlac
Province and the biggest Luzon city north of Manila. We drove
down the wide main street and I telephoned Cronin from the
Tarlac exchange. All the other public phones along the road
had been closed and most of the buildings in Tarlac, like those
in the villages, were boarded and closed.

"The telephone lines to the north have been cut but I'm

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going on up," I told Ray. "You probably won't hear from me
for a few days but Til get the story in as soon as possible. Where
we go will depend on how things look ahead. Well probably
spend the night in Baguio. I've always wanted to see it."

''Okay, but you better look out," Ray said. ''Baguio is past
our extreme right flank. Army communications seem to have
broken down and we have no news here up to now."

We drove on, expecting momentarily to come to our third
lines. I expected to see trenches like those in France in World
War I. But there were no lines and only a few sentries. One of
them stopped us a few miles north of Tarlac and we showed
him our press cards and went on, wondering now when we
would come to our second line.

The road went straight north, frequently passing over
bridges spanning wide and stony river beds. The rivers were
mostly dried up, with only a small stream in the center. Philip-
pine constabularymen guarded the bridges, but we drove past
them fast and they had no chance to challenge us.

Cars from the north were speeding down the road. We saw
one that had stopped to repair a flat tire and went over to talk.
An American woman, with a baby in her arms, w^as weeping.
"We went up to Baguio when the war started," she said, "think-
ing we would be safe. But they have been bombing all around
us. Last night we heard the noise of big guns, over at Lingayen
Gulf, all night long. This morning the Japs bombed Camp
John Hay at Baguio again. We seem to be surrounded. What
shall we do?" I advised her husband to keep going until he
got to Manila.

Trucks were loaded with beds and chairs and all the people
who could crowd aboard. Filipino families told us they had
seen the Jap ships in Lingayen Gulf that morning, and the
planes had come over, and many people had been killed in
Lingayen City and the other towns along the south shore. We
reassured them, "Our army is fighting them now. Within a
short time you will be back in your homes."

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Traffic to the north was sparse and we noticed that the
nearer we got to Lingayen, the slower it was moving. Travel-
ing fast, we overtook a few jeeps and army trucks and motor-
cycle riders. Some of the occupants were Americans.

Approaching the gulf at about five in the afternoon we
reached a fork in the road. The left-hand road led out to
Da Mortis, four miles away on Lingayen Gulf. The right-hand
one went to Baguio. We could see the waters of the Gulf, but
no ships. The Japs were further over to the west. An American
soldier rode up and stopped his motorcycle.

"Those Japs are pretty smart," he said. "They made a feint
at landing on the south shore of Lingayen, where we have
strong defenses. Then they sent their main forces along the
eastern beach from Da Mortis, over here to Bauang, which is
about twenty miles north. The Twenty-Sixth Cavalry is fight-
ing them a couple of miles up this left-hand road.'' He advised
us to turn back and then rode on, slowly, toward the fighting.
We had about two hours of daylight left and had to decide fast.

Juan wanted to take the soldier's advice. Carlos was neutral.
"Let's go on up to Baguio, where headquarters for this area
are located," I said, "and find out what the score is. I want to
see Baguio, and this might be my last chance. We'll have a
good sleep in the cool air and get going in the morning."

Juan objected, "But the Japs may cut this road in the night."

I said, "Hell, amigo, they are fighting the American Army
now and the American Army will hold them on the beach for-
ever. Hirohito's boys will die right where they land."

J.

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IHE road to Baguio left the gulf and ran level toward the
foothills for a half mile and then started to climb and turn,
following the course of a river that had cut a deep gorge in the
mountains. In most places the cliffs on the inside of the road
rose almost vertically, and on the outside dropped down steeply
to the river. A retaining wall kept automobiles from plunging
into the stream. Four or five times the road crossed the river
on suspension bridges, and the last few miles into Baguio
were a steep zigzag which had to be driven in second gear.

There were sentries and boxes of dynamite on the bridges.
A few miles from Baguio a tollgate barred the road, and the
conscientious gatekeeper was still collecting one dollar for ad-
mission to the national park, even with the war just over the
hills. He couldn't have collected much that evening, for we
saw no other cars on the road.

As we started up the road and rounded the first bend we saw
a 75-mm. gun mounted on a truck equipped with wheels in
front and tractor treads in the rear. It was manned by Filipino
scouts. They had been fighting the Japs at Da Mortis in the
morning, and a few minutes before we sighted them a dive
bomber had located them and dropped three 100-pounders in
the hill over their heads. We saw where the dirt and rocks had
fallen into their truck.

'*Those Japs are not so tough, sir," they said. ''The Filipino
Scouts and especially our regiment, the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry,
can defeat them at any time."

I asked why they were not at the front. They said, "It is
rather difficult to determine exactly where the front is, sir. We
were ordered to withdraw to this position by our commander,
Colonel Pierce."

\Vq drove up the winding road and over the zigzag and into

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the outskirts of Baguio. Through the pine trees we could see
the wooden buildings of Camp John Hay on a near-by hill. It
did not look badly damaged. There were some American army
trucks drawn up at the side of the road with a few officers stand-
ing beside them. One of them had a blood-soaked handkerchief
wrapped around his head. His left sleeve was cut o£E at the
shoulder and his arm bandaged. In the twilight he looked like
the drummer in The Spirit of 'y6.

He was Major Joseph Ganahl of Shaker Heights, Cleveland,
a West Pointer and in peacetime a polo player and hunter. He
and Major Williams and Major Noble and their Filipino
Scouts had been fighting the Japanese advance from Vigan,
down toward Lingayen, with a few mounted 75*s.

* 'We've been fighting these fellows for the past two weeks
and holding them pretty well. Day before yesterday the Japs
hit us with a large force, including tanks, and we started to
withdraw slowly down the coast road to the cut-off to Baguio.
Last night they surrounded us. We found them holding a
bridge behind us, but we shot our way across, then turned into
a road to our left, away from the beach and toward the moun-
tains. All last night they were firing at us with rifles and ma-
chine guns.

"At daylight this morning we could see their ships out
there. A bunch of them landed on the beach and set up some
88-millimeter guns. We shot back and forth for quite a while,
with considerable damage on both sides. Finally, only one of
my guns was firing and only about twelve of us were still alive
and unwounded. The Japs were on the beach and on the road
to the south of us, and we couldn't draw back dirough the
mountains.

"We were sitting there, exposed, in the middle of the rice
fields. Then their dive bombers came over, to add to tlie merry
hell of it, and I stopped a piece of bomb and a fragment of a
shell and a rifle bullet. Nothing serious, though.

"We decided our only chance was to try to fight our way out

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to the south. I put the survivors in the two trucks that were
still running. There weren't many survivors, and most of them
were wounded.

*'We drove back onto the road without getting hit, and
turned south. About a half mile up ahead the road passed
through a cut-out in a hill, which rose to about twenty feet on
each side. The Japs opened up on us from the top of the cut
with machine guns.

"Our leading gun-truck was badly shot up and was limping
along at only three miles an hour. The second one couldn't
pass it on the narrow road.

"When we reached the cut-ofiE we ducked low in the trucks
and held our breath. Machine-gun bullets bounced down on
us and a few of us got new wounds. We got through because
the Japs were too stupid to drop a couple of hand grenades
into our trucks. If they had been experienced soldiers we
wouldn't be here."

Ganahl told me that story many weeks later in Bataan. That
evening he was too exhausted to talk much.

That night I asked him only one question. "What happened
to the rest of our northern forces?"

He said, "Hell! WE arc the northern forces, what's left
of us."

Colonel Col Iyer, who was one of the officers talking to Ga-
nahl and who had just driven up from a lookout post over-
looking Lingayen, told us that a few minutes before he had
counted fifty-six Japanese ships off the coast He said the main
Japanese landings had been made at Bauang and at Da Mortis.
We wanted to go to the lookout but had to make plans for the
night.

We drove on into Baguio, and it was already so dark that all
we could see were wide streets and big homes surrounded by
bougainvillaea and other flowers, and a huge cathedral out-
lined against the overcast sky.- 1 was cool for the first time in a
month.

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We found our way to the home of Major Joaquin Garcia of
the Philippine Army, who was in command at Baguio, and
told him what we had seen on the way up. I asked him what

"We have lost touch with Manila," he said, "and I have no
recent orders. My last orders were to send four hundred re-
cruits down to Manila to be enrolled and I am trying to get
busses for them now. When they get past we will blow the
bridges on both roads leading up here."

"That lower road, at least, looks like an ideal place to de-
fend," I said. "We should be able to hold it forever with a
few machine guns. The Japs can't climb over those hills."

"We should, my friend," the major answered, "if we had
anything to hold it with. There were only a handful of troops
under Major Horan at Camp John Hay. I have nothing but
recruits. And don't overlook the Jap dive bombers. They've
been swooping up and down that road all day, picking off our
trucks and troops. Their dive bombers co-operate very effi-
ciently with their infantry."

We drove on over to the big, blacked-out Pines Hotel and
as we walked into the bar I immediately thought of the play
Idiot's Delight. The bar and lobby were expensively and taste-
fully furnished and decorated, and the people sipping their
cocktails in front of the fireplaces were very composed and
very sure of themselves. There were about a dozen; a handsome
English woman and her daughter and son-in-law; some suave,
elderly people of the world- traveler type, and a doctor with a
Teutonic accent and a face which made it immediately ap-
parent why he had to leave Vienna.

They were listening disinterestedly to the Manila radio
broadcast. They said, "Most of the Baguio people have gone on
down to Manila. We are staying here, as we believe the Japa-
nese will not bother to come. After all, there is nothing here
for them." We didn't tell them that the Japs were only about
eighteen miles away.

was being done to stop the Japs.

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The manager apologized because a buffet supper was being
served in place of the regular dinner. The supper was excellent,
with cold turkey and goose liver, and several kinds of salad
and wine, and we realized we hadn't eaten since morning.

While we were eating, our local correspondent came in.
He knew a little more about what was going on, but not much.
He told us the almost unbelievable story of Major Emil Speth,
ex-U.S. Army, who had obtained release from an internment
camp for A. H. Nagatoni, Japanese businessman, and had
gone out with Nagatoni to meet the Japanese Army in north-
em Luzon and arrange a separate peace between the Japanese
Empire and the resort city of Baguio. They had been inter-
cepted by American officials.

"Of course," the correspondent said, **that was a foolish
move, but we have another plan. When the Japanese approach
the city I am going out with the chairman of the Japanese
chamber of commerce in Baguio to meet them. We shall ar-
range for the Americans here to continue to live in their
homes."

There was no use reminding him how the Japanese Army
had conducted itself toward the conquered Chinese, nor that
Japan was purposefully attempting to humiliate the white
man in the eyes of the Oriental people.

The correspondent, an American who had come to the
Philippines many years previously, invited us to ride with him
a few miles down the Nagilien road, the northernmost of the
two roads from Baguio down to the Lingayen Gulf shore.
'*They have just set fire to Jan Marsman s oil storage tanks,"
he said, "to keep the oil from falling into the hands of the
Japs, and it is quite a sight."

Juan refused to go, but Carlos and I rode on down, past
numerous sentries who challenged us in the blackness. We
saw the fires from a couple of miles away.

The road curved sharply down the mountain, and as we
rounded a comer we pulled up short to keep from hitting a

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truck parked in the middle of the road. By the light of the
fires we could see a long line of trucks and busses stretching
around the bend past the burning tanks and then out of sight
down the hill. Filipino soldiers were standing quietly by the
roadside, or sitting impassively in their trucks and busses.

We located two American officers. They were both young
and one was tall and dark and the other medium-sized and
blond, with his trousers torn off at tlie knees and one shirt
sleeve gone. We put our feet on the retaining wall and leaned
our elbows on our knees and looked at the fires. Finally, the
officers started talking.

"MacArthur has sure got us slewed, stewed, and tattooed
with these green troops," said the tall one.

"Those airplanes have really got us switched, twitched, and
bewitched," said the other.

"What happened?"

They told the story, each supplementing the other.

"We were sent up here a while ago and stationed on the
beach at the junction of this road and the one to Vigan, to
the north up the gulf. This regiment was formed three days
ago, and most of the troops hadn^t been in uniform for more
than a couple of weeks.

"We dug in on the beach as well as possible, and got our
guns set up. We had a few one-fifty-fives and a couple of seventy-
fives and some fifty-caliber machine guns. We sat down to
wait.

"Last night we saw lights on ships a long way off shore and
this morning the gulf was thick with ships. They were an-
chored in a straight line, about half a mile offshore, directly
in front of us at Bauang and all the way down to Da Mortis.

"About seven-thirty, when it was fully light, the Japs started
coming ashore in landing boats. Meantime, as soon as we could
see, our gims opened on them and we sank one or two of their
ships. They were small, about three thousand tons.

"These green troops had never heard shooting before, and

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when our one-fifty-fives fired for the first time we looked
around and saw about half of our forces heading for the hills.
They just left their rifles and machine guns and took off,

**While the landing boats were still coming in the Japs hit
us from the air. They came low and bombed and strafed, but
didn't do very much damage. Most of their bombs went wild.

"As the Japs hit the beach the planes went away.

"We opened with our fifty-calibers and started mowing the
Japs down. The Japs didn't seem to know what to do when
they ran into our fire. They looked like bewildered young
kids. Every third one had a baby machine gun. Even though
the first ones were cut down the others kept coming, like men
in a hypnotic trance.

"Those Japs may be first class troops, but if we'd had five
thousand American soldiers or Filipino soldiers, and fifty air-
planes, the gulf would be full of floating bodies tonight and
we'd still be sitting there on the beach. Those Japs looked
like frightened kids to me. The only trouble was, our own
kids were more frightened. That and the fact we didn't have
any airplanes."

I asked, "How many warships were with them? Did they
cover the landing with a barrage?"

"They didn't shoot hardly at all from the ships," they said.
"We saw only two ships that looked like destroyers. The rest
were transports."

I asked, "Didn't some of our ships get in among them and
muss them up? Where were our submarines?"

"We haven't seen one of our ships since the war started.
And we heard that Tommy Hart has taken his submarines
down to Java."

"Where were our airplanes?"

"We saw one about ten days ago, but that was the last."

They called over one of the Filipinos, a green youngster who
had stuck and fought, and I questioned him. He said, "It is
very difficult to fight airplanes with rifles, sir."

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The blond lieutenant said, ''Those airplanes have really got
us tripped, stripped, and whipped. For God's sake, if you get
a chance, tell them back home that we need airplanes." By
the firelight, I made one more notation in my book.

The officers said the Japanese had kept coming ashore for
hours, despite their losses, and that finally our forces had to
withdraw. By that time it was afternoon and the Jap planes
had returned either to their carrier or to one of the fields they
had seized in northern Luzon, and had refueled and come
back. Our troops dumped everything they could carry into
their trucks and drew back up the road to Baguio. Bombs
dropped all around them, but they did not lose a man or a
gun during the retreat.

*'What are your orders now? Where are you going?"

"We were just told to sit here and wait. We haven't heard
anything directly from Manila since the war started. If the
Japs cut that south road down the mountain from Baguio
well probably have to take to the hills."

I asked, Where in hell are the American troops?"

They snorted and answered broadly, * 'Don't rightly appear
to be none hereabouts, stranger."

Driving back to Baguio I was still optimistic. I thought the
big battle, Americans versus Japs, was still going on at Da
Mortis. But the correspondent said: "If they cut the south
road tonight, there are a couple of ways out by trails over the
mountains. They are easy to find and the natives are friendly.
At least, they have been up to now."

We went back to the Pines Hotel and studied our Standard
Oil road map. It showed no roads out of Baguio except the
north and south routes down the mountains to the shore, and
a partially finished highway to the northeast. But that meant
a two days' drive into territory more than likely held by the
Japs. There was also a spur road, fourteen miles long, which
ran down past the gold mines to the south and ended in the
mountains.

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The correspondent said, *Trom there, there are two trails.
One leads to the west over the back of the sierras and comes
out on the road to Manila— the one you drove up today. It is
about a three days* walk. The other goes east and joins the
highway from Cabanatuan down to Manila. It is also three
days*. A lot of Baguio people have sent their wives and chil-
dren up to a place in the mountains called the Saw Mill, where
they have stored food for six months. That should be long
enough, don't you think? If you get cut oflE you can go up
there and sit it out for the duration."

Carlos and I thanked him and were getting ready to turn
in when Juan came running into the room.

"Leeeeee," he quavered. **We must go. I have been back to
see Major Garcia and he tells me all the bridges will be blown
up by morning. His troop convoy has departed and we can
follow it down the south road and maybe get through."

I telephoned the major. He confirmed what Juan had said.
We paid our bill and hurried out to the car.

With lights off we crept through the streets of Baguio and
onto the main road down the mountains. Elsewhere in the
Philippines the moon was shining, but not in Baguio. Dark
clouds were down below the tops of the mountains, and it was
impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.

It was raining slightly. That was the only rain I saw in the
Philippines from the first day of war until I finally left the
islands. We prayed for it many times, but our prayers were
never answered.

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We STARTED down the mountain, barely crawling, and
in the first twenty minutes we made only a couple of miles. No
light at all came through the clouds and the trees lining the
road.

I tried standing on the running board watching the roadside
and calling directions to Carlos, "Hard right, slow, straight,
slow, slow." Then I steered with my arm through the window,
while he operated the clutch and brake. In that way we nego-
tiated the sharp turns of the zigzag and finally came to a fairly
open portion of the road.

We decided it was hopeless to go on without lights, and
taped some wrapping paper over the headlights. The paper
soon blew off, but we left the lights on dim and kept going at
about fifteen miles an hour. Juan kept asking, "Do you think
we'll make it? Will we get there before the Japs?"

With only a mile or so to go before reaching the main road
to Manila we rounded a comer and our lights illuminated
the rear end of a bus halted in the middle of the road. We saw
eight or ten more busses ahead of it. The busses were in the
middle of the road and we couldn't get around them, so we
turned off our lights and coasted to a stop.

Carlos walked up ahead to investigate. He reported that it
was the convoy that our friend Major Garcia was sending
to Manila. It was commanded by another major. They had
stopped while a scout car went ahead to investigate if it was
still possible to get through, or if the Japanese coming inland
from Da Mortis had already reached the junction between our
road and the main highway to Manila. It was about one-thirty
in the morning.

On our left, on the inside of the road, the hills rose perpen-
dicularly for a hundred feet. The river, which we could hear

94

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but not see, was some thirty feet below the level of the
road on the right, and the retaining wall dropped steeply down
for that distance. We could see the tops of the hills across the
river about a hundred and fifty yards away, dimly outlined
against the sky. We got out of the car and sat on the wall and
chatted with the Filipino boys, who were smoking cigarettes
and enjoying themselves. Only a few had rifles and they told
me, '*We are Filipino Scouts, sir, of the Engineers. There arc
sixty of us. The rest are recruits."

Twice the convoy started and we got back in our car, but
each time it moved only a few feet and stopped again.

The second time the soldiers remained in their busses, while
the three of us got out and sat on the wall. Juan was the first
to hear it. Across the river, up on the hill, there was the noise of
breaking bushes and of someone or something descending the
mountain. He quavered, ''Leeeeee. What is that?" I said, '*Just
a couple of deer." Then we heard it again. Suddenly I remem-
bered flying over Ningpo, on the China coast, six months be-
fore, and watching the Japanese Army land. In six hours their
leading units had advanced some fifteen miles inland from
the coast. I thought, ''This is only six miles from the Lingayen
shore and it's been eighteen hours since they landed. Maybe
that isn't deer, but Japs."

In the darkness Carlos located the major and called him
back to our car. We all listened and heard the unmistakable
sounds of many people, or animals, coming down the hillside.

I remembered my ROTC training, many years before. I
said, "Look, major, deploy your forces along the wall here. If
you have any machine guns put them on top of the busses.
We'll turn on the searchlight on our car and you challenge
whoever is over there. Maybe they are some of our troops
withdrawing from the battle on the beach yesterday." I was
thinking of the blond officer and the dark one, and what had
happened to their forces when our 155's went off for the first
time.

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The major was excited, "I have only sixty men with rifles.
No machine guns. We had better run on and take a chance of
making it."

Just then, we heard a loud explosion from up ahead. "They
must have blown the bridge at Klondike," Carlos said. "We
can't get through now. We'll have to fight."

"Major," I said, "this looks like a good position to defend.
Nobody can come down this hill on the left, except human
flies. We can tip our car over on its side, and a few men can
control the road from the upper end, since they'll have to
come straight at us. They can't climb this wall from the river.
We can hold until nearly dawn and then set fire to the busses
and get back up the road and into the hills before their dive
bombers get here."

The major, by this time, was jumping with nervousness,
and Carlos took over. He ran to the nearest busses, and in
Spanish and Tagalog, plus a few words of Igorot, told the boys
to pile out and crouch behind the wall. The major saw him
and snapped out of it.

He disappeared, running, down the line of trucks and in a
few minutes came back. The soldiers piled out, scared and ex-
cited, and bumped into each other as they ran to the wall and
knelt down. In the darkness they were just shadows.

The last I saw of Carlos was his white shirt, over near the
last bus. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself and I
knew that he was waving his tiny .25-caliber pistol in his hand
and shouting orders. I thought, "Maybe Carlos is a descendant
of some great Spanish admiral and just needed this experience
to bring out his fighting blood. I can't let him outshine a Lee."

The major came back and stood by the car and said, "O.K."
I switched on the light and focused it on the hillside. It was
much nearer and lower than it had seemed and the slope down
to the stream was only about thirty degrees. The hillside was
covered with trees and brush. We couldn't see anyone moving.

The major challenged, in a loud shout: "Halt, who goes

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there?" Immediately, from about a dozen places on the hill-
side, came back grunts and shouts, "Hai," "Ha," '*Ho," "Hai,"
"Ha." Then we heard the sing-song call, "A-tu-ta," which we
learned later was the Jap password.

To the right of the car, covering our right flank, I could
see about twelve boys crouched beside the wall I snapped out
the searchlight.

The major ran batk a few steps and pulled out his .45 and
fired three quick shots in the air. The recruits who had been
alongside the car evidently mistook the shots for the starting
pistol of a fifteen-mile race back up the mountain to their
homes in Baguio. They stampeded up the road. Juan, who
had been in the back seat, jumped past me and took off behind
them. He disappeared almost instantly, a thin streak in the
darkness.

Our soldiers started firing their Springfields and Enfields,
rapid fire. The sound echoed back and forth across the canyon
and sounded like thousands of shots. I could hear the bullets
smashing into the brush on the hill across the river.

There was a pause while the soldiers reloaded, then another
volley. Leaning back against the cliff, with the car between
me and the hill across the river, I couldn't hear any shots com-
ing back, nor see any flashes. I thought, "This engagement will
go down in the minds of these boys as the Batalla de las Sotn-
bras— the shadow fight."

I walked the few feet back to our car and saw the rear door
was open and three pair of boots were projecting. Three tiny
figures crawled reluctantly out. One of them still had a rifle.
He knelt down on the road, while I sat on the running board.
He said, "I am wounded, sir." I felt his arm and got blood on
my hand. He had another wound in the shoulder. "Kindly do
not make me shoot any more, sir." "It's all right," I said. "You
do not have to fire any more."

The second recruit said, "I, also, have been wounded in
the arm."

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Panic had untied the tongue of the third figure. He chat-
tered on, quietly and continuously. '*Oh, sir, I am not a soldier.
I am but the pobre caminero from Baguio. I was warned not
to take this trip. I wish to return to my home and my wife. I am
the poor bus driver, sir, and I do not like wars."

I didn't know where I was going, if any place, so I took all
three of them over to their bus, where they crawled onto the
floor. I was still not thoroughly convinced there were Japs
across the river, and I thought it was possible the two recmits
had been wounded by our own fire, in the first confusion.

The firing had ceased for a second time and then suddenly
it started up again. There were no flashes from alongside the
car, nor behind it. I realized suddenly that I and the Ford were
our right flank and rear guard.

The darkness back up the road took on shapes and my imagi-
nation created figures which came charging down toward me.
They weren't the ragged kids that our officers at Baguio had
described to me as landing earlier in the day, but the Japanese
landing-party troops I had known back in Shanghai, the
husky, blue-uniformed marines with their white puttees and
polished bayonets.

I said to myself, crouching there beside the car, **Lee, think
how angry your wife would be with you if you were killed
here, all uncovered with glory and without killing a single
Jap. You know you have to die sometime. You cannot refuse
to die for your country. But do you want to die here, now, on
this lonely road, bayoneted by a Japanese marine without a
chance to fight back?"

The answer was easy. It was **NOI" and the indicated action
was to get the hell out of there.

There remained the question of Carlos. I had last seen him
in the middle of things, running the show, waving his arms
and giving orders. I made myself walk down to the left, stum-
bling along the wall, looking for him. I went about 1 50 yards,
past most of the busses, and couldn't find him or anybody who

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had seen him. Finally I bumped into the major. He told me,
'*The muchdcho with the white shirt ran up the road when
the firing started."

Our troops were still firing sporadically, but apparently
some of the Scout sergeants had taken over, because there was
less wild shooting and things seemed to be pretty well under
control.

I went back to the car and saw that it was on a slight slope
to the rear. I left the door open, got behind the wheel, and
pushed with one foot. The Ford rolled back, slowly and then
faster. My imaginary Japanese marines had disappeared, and
the chief danger was that if I started the engine our own
troops would shoot at me. I coasted about two hundred yards,
and then the decline ended and the road began to climb. I
started the engine.

I made several attempts to turn around, but the road was
too narrow, or I was shaking too much, and I couldn't nego-
tiate it. So I turned on the lights and backed up, holding the
door open and keeping close to the wall, and stepping hard on
the gas. Several times the fenders scraped the wall. After at
least two miles, I saw a break in the wall and backed into it.
There was a level space, apparently a dump or fill-in, project-
ing about fifteen feet out over the river. The car sank down
into the dirt as I jammed on the brake, but before it could
slide backward into the river I yanked the gear into low and
pulled back onto the road and headed up the mountain toward
Baguio.

There were shots for the next five minutes, which sounded
as if they were coming from across the canyon. They may have
been echoes of shooting farther down, but more likely they
were fired by some of our own recruits who had run up the
road and were crouching in the brush.

Five miles up the road the headlights illuminated a pros-
trate figure on a grassy bank at the right of the road. I guessed
it was Juan even before I heard his terrified shout, "Leeeeee,

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for God's sake, stopl" I halted the car, he climbed in, and I
drove on.

"Where is Carlos?" I asked.

*'He passed me back there, running. Lee I For God s sake,
hurry upl Goonl'*

''Are you sure he passed you? How did you recognize him?"

''I saw his white shirt, and he shouted at me. I was running
as fast as possible but he is an athlete and he passed me."

By this time my conscience was giving me hell. I thought,
•'Here I am running away and leaving that kid back there." I
was driving slower and slower, and finally I stopped in spite
of Juan's franctic pleas.

I turned around to him in the back seat and said, **Juan
Garcia, kneel down and raise your hand and swear by the Holy
Roman Church that you saw Carlos pass you."

He knelt and leaned against the seat and said, "I swear."

"Maybe you aren't a Catholic," I said. "Swear by your
mother."

He swore, "By the memory of my mother, I swear he ran by
me on the road. He was with five or six soldiers. They over-
took and passed me and went up a slope and into the brush. I
saw his white shirt and he spoke to me."

"The major told me the same thing," I said, "so it must be
true. But if you're lying, cabrdn, I'll cut off your ears."

Then I drove full speed up the deserted road toward Baguio.
All the sentries had disappeared from the bridges, except one.
He motioned to us to stop and I asked what he wanted. "I have
been ordered to Baguio, sir." "Whose orders?" "My captain
came down in his car and told me to come back." He climbed
in with Juan.

There was no one at the tollgate, but the gate on the left-
hand side of the road, our side, was down. I almost smashed
into it before we saw it, and then I backed up and circled
around the little tollhouse in the middle of the road and went
through on the right.

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I dropped the soldier in the center of Baguio and drove
straight to Major Garcia s house. He woke up after I had
pounded on the door for a few minutes, and came down in his
dressing gown, carrying a flashlight. We went up to his rooms,
on the second floor, and after Juan had calmed down I told
the major what had happened.

"Where is the other muchachoV he asked. Juan told him,
and the major said, **He will show up here in the morning.

**I don't know how you got back. I ordered those bridges
blown at one o'clock. Well, in any case, we are very nicely cut
off here now."

Wearily he pulled on his pants and boots. He said, '*If you
are going to walk out in the morning, you better get some rest."
Juan sprawled on his bed and I lay down on the couch.

The major picked up the telephone and called his office.

**Captain Hernandez? The Japs are on the south road, now,
as well as the north. Our convoy seems to be cut off. My orders
to blow the bridges have not been carried out. • . . What am
I going to do? I am going to fight. . . . With what forces?
Well, we have those fifty ROTC cadets. They have six ma-
chine guns and I believe they know how to shoot them. Wake
them up and tell them to get ready. Get two busses and take
them down the road. . . . I'll be right over."

I went to sleep before he went out. The air raid siren woke
me in the morning. It wasn't as loud or as startling as the
sirens in Manila. It sounded more like the fire alarm they
used to blow on bad days back home to tell the kids that there
wouldn't be any school.

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Wh ILE the siren was still blowing, one single plane came
over, flying low through the overcast sky, and dropped one
bomb, up by Camp John Hay.

I saw it from the major s dining-room window, which
looked out over all of Baguio. I also saw that the town was
in a shallow basin, with pine-covered mountains all around.
Over to the northeast, toward the Lingayen Gulf shore, there
were puflfs of anti-aircraft shells. Over the mountains, with the
guns out of sight and the planes hidden by clouds, the shell-
bursts looked like parachutes cracking open.

''So that's why we've been getting these reports of Japanese
parachutists landing in Luzon," I thought. **It was probably
anti-aircraft all the time."

We knew our troops were no longer on the beach, and we
figured it must be Japanese guns shooting at one of our few
remaining planes. We felt sorry for the pilot, but we were
glad to know we had a plane left.

There were two second lieutenants of the Philippine Army
having breakfast with the major. They told us they had come
up the north road during tlie night, and that most of the
forces we had seen there the previous evening had gone on
down the south road and gotten through safely. They them-
selves were taking to the hills and were going to try to walk
out and come in behind the Japs and get on to Manila.

They told us they had been in the rear guard fighting down
from Vigan, with Major GanahL "Our scouts have been out-
smarting the Japs, who don't seem to care for night fighting.
They don't like hand-to-hand combat either, and in our skir-
mishes with them we had the best of it. The trouble is that
there are too many of them, and they keep coming in behind
and cutting us off. But the real reason we are still here, instead

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of fighting at Vigan, is that they have airplanes, and we don't-"

Major Garcia said some of his busses with the recruits had
got through to Manila the night before and the remainder had
returned to Baguio, a good many of them with wounds. He
thought it possible that the road was still open.

He told us Major Ganahl and his troops had driven east
into the mountains, where they were to destroy their guns and
then walk on out to the Cabanatuan road and try to get busses
to take them down to Manila.

Just as we finished breakfast the phone rang. It was Carlos—
at the Pines Hotel. '*I took to the hills with some soldiers when
the shooting started," he said, **and early this morning we got
a ride up in one of the troop busses."

'*Get ready to walk," I told him. **We are going to try to
drive down the road, but if we can't we will leave the car at
Itogen and walk over the mountains to San Nicolds."

We said good-by to Major Garcia. "If you get out and 1
don't," he said, '*please go to headquarters and tell them what
is what up here. Tell them to radio some instructions and if
they have a spare plane to lend it to us long enough to make
a reconnaissance."

I drove up to the Pines Hotel, hoping it would still be pos-
sible to get through down the south road. The streets were
full of people, running excitedly, and down near the big park
in the center of the city a group of young men with knives
and rifles and clubs were gathering. Some had uniforms, but
most were in civilian clothes. At the hotel we saw forty or fifty
cars in the driveway, and others coming in. An excited, fright-
ened group of men and women and some children, most of
them Americans, was standing under the portico. They were
bewildered, and indignant that the United States would let
this happen to them. I talked to some of the men. "We tried
to drive down to Manila, but there is fighting on the road. The
lower bridges were blown up at six o'clock this morning."

"What will you do now?"

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"We are all residents of Baguio, engineers in the gold mines,
so we will stay here in the hoteL It has been arranged for for-
eigners to gather here. Our Japanese business friends are being
released from the internment camp. They will meet the Japa-
nese Army officers and arrange for us to have good treatment."

I went back to the car and told Juan and Carlos, **The
bridges have been destroyed. We have to walk."

We drove back to the main street and stopped at a Calcutta
Indian store, which was about the only one still op>en. I bought
three pair of socks each for Carlos and Juan and myself. We
had already filled the tank with gasoline, getting it by showing
our press cards just before the service station closed for the
last time.

We drove south through the town and up the hill and
turned into a side road leading down the mountain to Itogen.
There were a number of army trucks and busses and cars, all
moving slowly in our direction. I passed one car, after blowing
my horn. An American major motioned me over to the side
of the road and got out.

"Damn you," he said, "don't blow your horn. Don't you
know it is the signal that airplanes are overhead?"

I apologized and we went on, falling in line with the army
vehicles. The macadam soon ended and we drove on a dirt
road down the steep slope of the mountains, past the entrance
to the big gold mines, and a huge refining plant. There were
many people walking down the road, Filipino miners and their
families. With their battered suitcases they looked more as if
they were off for a fiesta and thankful to have a holiday from
their work underground than as if they were fleeing.

Curving steeply downward the road came abruptly against
a hillside. A side road swung off to the right, straight west.
Army busses were parked for a half mile along it and the map
showed it was a dead end. Another road curved to the left. The
soldiers told us it ended a few hundred yards down and that it
led to the trail to San Nicolds and Tayug.

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An American major was in charge of the soldiers, who were
mostly Filipino Scouts, and I tried to convince him to take over
our car, which was no longer of any use to us. I wrote out a

receipt, dated December 23, 1942, "Received of Carlos ,

one Ford sedan, 1938 model, reimbursement to be made after
the war." He was holding it in his hand and looking at it, when
someone shouted, 'Tlanesl"

There were three of them, twin-engined Navy "96" bombers,
flying low and straight up the valley. The soldiers scattered
for cover. Juan and I ran a few yards down the left-hand road.
He scrambled up the bank and I jumped to the left, off the
road. The slope was much steeper than it looked and I started
to drop. I grabbed a bush, but it tore out in my hands, and
then I grabbed a rock, and it held. The planes looked us over
and then went on without dropping any bombs or strafing.
Juan came down and gave me a hand to get back up to the
road. It was the first and last time I saw him worried about
anything but his own safety.

We went back to talk to the major when a lieutenant colonel
drove down and called the major over to his car.

**What are you doing here? Your orders were to go down
the south road from Baguio and join our forces behind Lin-
gayen Gulf."

"I started down, sir, but we ran into Jap machine guns at
the bridges and turned back."
"Where are your seventy-fives?"

"Some of them we destroyed by pushing them into the rivers
on the south road. The others are here."

The colonel lowered his voice. "Well, I suppose you did
right. But I believe I would have tried to fight my way
through."

I left them discussing what to do next. Later I learned that
most of them were cut off in the hills, where they were operat-
ing as guerrillas for the next few months and may possibly still
be fighting.

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We couldn't sell our car to the major, so we drove on down
the left road. Around the bend we ran into more busses and
trucks. Soldiers were pushing them over the bank into a 250-
foot ravine on the left. We went through the car and took the
things we thought we needed. The new socks, Carlos's .25
pistol, a jacket and a box of crackers, and the Standard Oil
map. Everything else we left in the car. My camera had disap-
peared during the night.

Carlos sprinkled some gasoline on the car, and threw a
lighted match while Juan and I gave it a push. Flames shot up
as it crashed over and down into the gully. Carlos said,
*'Adios, Fordcito/'

We walked on down the road, crossed a stream by jumping
from boulder to boulder, and started up the path on the other
side. Our map showed that the trail we wanted followed the
course of the San Nicolds River most of the way. The river,
down on our left, seemed to spring out of the mountains be-
hind us, somewhere near the smelter. There, and for miles
downstream, it was discolored with oil which the American
engineers had dumped from their tanks at the mines.

Before we had gone a mile Carlos and Juan ran into a friend
from Manila, a college student, who told us to take the right-
hand path, up the hill. He was headed for the sawmill, where
his mother had taken refuge.

For the next two miles the path climbed steeply, then it
leveled off and ran the same distance from the summit of the
mountains while the river and the valley floor dropped steadily
away beneath us. The mountains had been stripped of trees
and we could see for miles ahead where the path wound around
the hills. Little groups of people were strung at intervals
along the path. We overtook a party of American Army doc-
tors, with two American nurses and several Filipino Scouts.
They had been ordered to evacuate Camp John Hay. As far as
we could leam, they never reached Manila but remained some-
where in the hills to sit out the war.

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The path was so narrow that when we overtook a group of
people they would have to crowd back against the hillside
while we inched past, trying not to look at the steep drop be-
side us. At one place, where the path had partially crumbled
away and the hill dropped sheer for more than five hundred
feet, I became suddenly dizzy and Carlos had to give me a hand
across the break.

The next two days are a confused jumble of impressions:
vividly beautiful vistas of terraced rice fields and the river far
beneath us; heat and fatigue and hunger; the blessings of cool
streams flowing out of the mountains every few miles, where
our fellow refugees stopped to cook and rest, and where we
drank greedily and bathed our faces and wrists; whole families
of Filipinos trudging drearily and steadily along the trail, the
women carrying babies on their backs and the men bent over
with the weight of huge packs; miners with their pith helmets,
most of them carefully carrying their pet fighting cocks under
their arms; the fact that everybody, everywhere, spoke some
words of English and with it the realization that our occupa-
tion of the Philippines had given us obligations; withered
Igorot women wearing horizontally striped skirts of faded
cotton, and nothing else, and their men wearing shirts, and
nothing else; jaunty Igorots riding sure-footed horses at a trot
along that narrow trail, one rider wearing a smart, heavy tweed
jacket and a stock around his neck, and no pants; villages of
four or five grass huts built on stilts, with the dogs sharing
the interior with the family and the pigs dozing underneath;
Juan's haunting fear.

Those people were fleeing from a terror that had come on
them out of the skies. We were racing for our freedom. We
rested only a few minutes at a time, while we bathed and
drank, and then kept going, putting one weary foot ahead of
the other.

That first night we stayed in a small village by the river
bank, as guests of the village headman. The friend whom

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Juan and Carlos had met back at the start of the trail had sent
word on ahead, in some manner unknown to us, and we were
accepted, if not welcomed. At twilight, which lasted only a
few minutes, we sat in front of our host s home and watched
the young girls threshing rice, while boys and chickens and
pigs raced around the stone enclosure that bounded the vil-
lage. The houses were of nipa and built on stilts, except for
the headman's home which was three stories high, built of
lumber, and with a tin roof. The sliding windows reminded
me unpleasantly of Japanese homes.

The headman spoke a queer Spanish, consisting mostly of
infinitives, but we could converse. I was amazed to learn that
he knew the war was going badly for us; that the enemy had
command of the air. He said, ''Aviones Americanos no estar
aqui. Porqui?" The same question,* 'Where are our airplanes?'*
A Belgian priest lived in a tiny combination chapel and home
outside the village wall. He told us, ''These people are sus^
picious. They think perhaps you were sent to bring airplanes
against them. They have already heard that airplanes spread
death and fire. So you had better hope no planes come to-

We hoped hard, until exhaustion closed our eyes.

We started walking again shortly after daylight, with a
guide furnished by the headman showing us the way. We were
told that by hard walking it was possible to reach San Nicolds
by sundown. The guide was relieved at the next village by
another young man, and so on. These boys spoke Ejiglish and
proudly wore their silver badges of the National Guides or-
ganization. They were friendly and helpful, but I grew to hate
them for the effortless way they walked, setting a pace that
at times had us running to keep up. They knew every step of
the way and where the path frequently led through rice fields
and over fences, they knew exactly which fence rail or which
boulder to step on and would go up and over the obstacle
without breaking stride. Their bare feet, of course, made no

night.

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noise, but as the hours went on it seemed that each of their
steady, unfaltering steps was a hammer pounding at the back
of my head.

The second day we forded the San Nicolds River sixteen
times. Once the water was nearly to my shoulder and we had
to struggle to get across. Once we crossed on a rickety suspen-
sion bridge, fifty feet above the river bed. Almost all the
wooden flooring was rotted away and shook unsteadily on
the wires.

When one of us stopped to rest or put on a new pair of
socks, the others kept going and the straggler would have to
run to catch up. Once I plunged, clothes and all, into the river
to cool oflE and was refreshed until the sun dried me out.

The worst part was climbing over the last hump of the
sierras that second morning. The top looked deceptively near.
Toward the summit it was like climbing an interminable
ladder with every other rung missing. The trail consisted of
long steps chopped out of the hillside. At the last we were
making only twenty or thirty of these steps before having to
rest. We overtook an American mining man near the top. He
joined us and shared some tinned soup he was carrying.

**I left Baguio yesterday afternoon and kept walking most
of the night, with my flashlight. The garrison was ordered to
abandon Camp John Hay. Some of the miners dynamited the
equipment there. We also destroyed our own supplies and
flooded the gold mines. It will be a long while before the Japs
can use them."

That climb was the worst, until later in the afternoon,
when we thought all the climbing was behind us. Wherever
possible the path followed the river winding over and between
boulders, but in some places the hills came right down to the
river's edge and the path climbed steeply up one side and
down the other. We made many of those climbs on hands and
knees.

By four in the afternoon there were unmistakable signs

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that we were approaching the lowlands. The river widened
and flowed more slowly. We hoped that every hill we went
around or over would be the last, but always there was one
more behind it.

It was nearly 6 P.M., when the last guide left us at the last
fording place. He said, "San Nicolis is just ahead." By that
time tliere were people coming up the trail in the opposite
direction, headed for the mountains, and they told us the Japs
were already close to Tayug. They said, **San Nicolds is just
ahead there.'* But it wasn't. There were rice fields, and some
sugar cane and flat lands. But not San NicoUs.

When we finally came to a village, over across the rice fields,
it was Santa Maria. But it was good enough. There were ten or
twelve houses along the single street, and a few horse-drawn
calesas. We breathed a prayer of thanksgiving at being back
once more in civilization— meaning vehicles.

Carlos ran up the street, sprinting, and in a few minutes
came back with two calesas. We were afraid that the weight of
the four of us in one vehicle would hoist the tiny horse off the
ground in his shafts.

The calesa drivers said they could take us to San Nicolds,
three miles down the road, but no farther. **This road is now
our front line and our soldiers are on it, closer to Tayug. There
has been fighting all day a little to the north, with many air-
planes and much noise of guns."

Carlos said, "Well, if our army is still on the road it means
we've made it. If we can make it to Tayug we can get through
to Manila." None of us had dared to mention the goal of our
flight before now. Carlos was riding with me in the calesa, and
we studied the Standard Oil map again. If the road to Tayug
was blocked we decided to hike across the fields to Victoria
during the night and try to get on in the morning.

We reached San Nicolds with surprising speed and pulled up
in the tiny plaza in front of the rickety church. I argued with
the drivers.

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"Ten pesos to Tayug/'

**I regret, sirs, that it is impossible to go further/'

''Fifteen pesos for a few miles. Surely it is more than you
have made in one day in your life, viejo/'

Finally they gave in. For fifteen pesos they would take us as
far as the first sentry, and no farther. Going west again, with the
bony horses trotting, we passed many calesas and carabao-
drawn carts fleeing toward the mountains. The drivers were
urging on their animals, hoping to reach shelter before night
which was only a few minutes away.

Over to the right, toward Lingayen Gulf but much nearer,
was the smoke of two huge fires. 'Trom the airplanes, this after-
noon," the driver explained.

We were watching for the sentries, with our eyes on a carabao
cart a quarter of a mile ahead of us. Suddenly it disappeared in
a crashing explosion. When we reached the weckage our
drivers refused to go any farther. There were two dead men and
a dead carabao in the road, and a small group of people had
gathered around them. They said, **It was a land mine, sir.'*

A few hundred yards further on we reached the sentries.
Only a faint flush of light was left in the sky. We showed them
our press cards and told them:

''We come from the northern front- It is imperative that we
be taken to your headquarters to report/'

One of them led us down the road toward a car which we
could see dimly a quarter mile farther on. In the near darkness
it was impossible to make out the black dust covering the land
mines planted in the road. I would have stepped on one except
for the sentry, who grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back
when my foot was already in the air and descending. I was too
dead beat to worry about it and the incident seemed unimpor-
tant, although neither before nor since have I come any closer
to being killed.

The car turned out to be a light truck, with red crosses
painted on its sides. The driver was a young Filipino, not over

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fourteen, and his mother was in the seat beside him. The sentry
jumped on the running board and ordered the boy to drive us
to headquarters.

We drove to headquarters and found that headquarters was
not there. It had just moved five miles to the south, at Vic-
toria. The driver took us to the hospital.

"I am sorry, sirs, but I cannot leave. My duty is here and I
may be of some use."

A large, open truck drove up and a group of patients who
were not badly wounded came out of the hospital and climbed
in. The driver told us he was going to Victoria and there was
room for us. The wounded boys were boasting about fighting
the Japs at Vigan and along the Lingayen Gulf. * 'Those Japs
are no good, sir," they said. Many of them had four or five
wounds from the Japanese .25 caliber rifles and one had ten
wounds in his back from a Japanese machine gun of similar
caliber.

The driver backed around and headed south, following the
roads by the light of the moon which was now shining brightly
on the Pangasinan plains. The miner suddenly said, "So it's
Christmas Eve. And instead of Saint Nicholas coming to us,
weVe been to San Nicolds."

My own thoughts were, "And this is the night I was going to
walk up Fifth Avenue in the snow."

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1 HERE was not much traffic on the road, except tanks. We
had to pull over while some tanks overtook us. Then other
tanks passed going the other way, northward toward the front.

Once, when we stopped, I had a few words with an American
boy whose head was sticking out of a tank turret. He told me
he was from Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
"How is it going?"

"Not bad, except for their planes. When we pull under a
tree and hide, and get everything camouflaged, it doesn't seem
to take twenty minutes for their planes to find us."

"Sounds like it's all done with mirrors."

"You said it. Somebody is tying mirrors or pieces of steel to
the trees around our positions. The pilots see the flash of sun-
light on them, and dive down and strafe and bomb us."

"Where are you heading now?"

"Looks like everything is moving gradually south. We've
been fighting delaying actions, holding bridges and shooting
the Japs when they come down the roads, while our infantry
withdraws behind us. When their tanks come, or they sur-
round us, we are ordered to get out to the south."

"Merry Chris tmasl"

The tank threw up clouds of dust in the moonlight as it
pulled away.

At Victoria we were arrested by the constabulary and taken
to the police station. Our miner companion had a German-
sounding name and no identification papers, but we quickly
convinced the sergeant that all of us should be taken to Army
Headquarters.

Headquarters were in the village market building, which
was open on the sides with a concrete roof. Troops were mov-
ing about the yard and others were asleep on the concrete floor.

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A sentry took me to the intelligence officer, a major whose fea-
tures I could not make out in the darkness under the roof.

I told him about the 71st— the regiment of the blond officer
and the dark one— and about Major Ganahl, and the south road
to Baguio being blocked, and the troops cut off in the hills at
Itogen, and the nurses and doctors hiking through the moun-
tains. He thanked me, but wasn't especially interested.

"What is the situation here?" I asked.

''It has been necessary to order a general withdrawal to the
south from Lingayen Gulf, to prevent the Japs who landed on
the east shore of the gulf from coming around in the rear of
our forces. Here we are on the right flank of the line, which ex-
tends all the way westward to the Zambales mountains."

''What's up in front of us?''

"Twenty-sixth Cavalry is holding the right flank. They have
been fighting magnificently and have held up the enemy by
rear guard actions. They are now bivouacked for the night in
Tayug."

The major said, "Excuse me, there's General Wainright."
He went over to greet a tall figure stepping out of a car. The
officers surrounded him and took him aside before I could
speak to him.

Our sentry led us back to the police station and we inquired
about transportation to Manila.
"There is a train in the morning."

We wanted to make sure whether or not we were under
arrest.

"If you don't mind we will go over to the station tonight and
sleep there to be certain we do not miss the train."

"Certainly. The sergeant will show you the way."

Near the station we heard a train whistle and broke into a
run. An engine, pulling a single caboose, was just about to
start for Tarlac. We climbed into the caboose and stretched
out on the floor. There were a few soldiers, Americans and Fili-
pinos, and one of them opened a can of beans and we had a

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SfKDonful each. During the night the miner woke me several
times. **Lookat the moon," he said. **It has shifted to the wrong
side. Are you sure we aren't going north?" I was too tired to
care much where we were going, but I assured him we were
headed south. Under the bright moon the rice fields looked
golden and peaceful.

We awakened in Tarlac, at about four in the morning, and
piled out onto the station and promptly fell asleep on the
benches.

When the train for Manila came in, at. 8:50 A.M., the long
station platform was jammed with people. There were many
American miners who had hiked out over the hills from
Baguio, and Filipino families with bulging suitcases. Many of
the Filipinos had come from Lingayen Gulf towns, where their
homes had been bombed. Everybody had one idea in mind: to
get south, to Manila, and away from the invaders advancing
from the north.

The train backed and went forward, and picked up and
dropped cars, for nearly half an hour. When we finally started
south the station clock said 9: 19 A.M.

Just twelve minutes later, as we learned shortly afterwards,
Japanese planes dived low over the station. They dive-bombed
first and then raked the platform with their .25 caliber ma-
chine guns and 20-mm. cannon. Twenty-seven people were
killed and some fifty or sixty wounded. We saw photographs
showing where one bomb hit, just where we had been sitting.

There was an aging American woman schoolteacher in our
crowded first-class compartment. "I have been in the Philip-
pines for nearly thirty years. I was principal of a school at Lin-
gayen City. We were forced to close our school by the author-
ities and I left there yesterday. Up to then the Japanese had
not landed, but we heard they were coming down over to the
east." She was indignant because the U. S. Army had taken the
school fence to build barricades out in the gulf. She wanted me
to put a story in the papers about her fence.

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The train got more and more crowded, so Carlos and I
pushed out onto the platform and stood there. We spotted
smoke in the distance and climbed to the swaying top of a box-
car which was coupled on behind the first-class carriage. The
train came rapidly abreast of the smoke and we saw it was at
Clark Field. There were two huge columns, the black smoke of
burning oil, with high flames shooting up through the smoke.
We could see a few wrecked planes on the wide runways, and
the hangars seemed to have been badly hit. There were other,
smaller fires in the barracks and houses at Camp Stotsensburg,
which adjoined Clark Field.

The train stopped at a station just opposite the fires. U. S.
soldiers were on duty on the platform. I called to one of them.

"They bomb you again this morning?"

"Hell, nol Set it ourselves." Then, proudly, "There's two
hundred thousand gallons of aviation gasoline burning there."

"It's a pretty fire but what in hell did you set it for? Isn't this
our main airfield?"

"It was, but a field's no damn' good without airplanes. And
we are slightly short of airplanes."

"Where you fellows going from here?"

"Don't know yet. South somewhere."

We told him that a huge, inflated inner tube for a bomber
tire had bounced oflF a flat car a few miles up the track, and he
promised to send someone to investigate. There were other
tubes in the car, and two boxes marked "Wright Cyclone Air-
plane Engine."

Carlos scrambled down and bought a newspaper and we
read a statement by General MacArthur: "In order to spare
Manila from any possible air or ground attacks, consideration
is being given by military authorities to declaring Manila an
open city, as was done in the case of Paris, Brussels, and Rome
during this war." Somehow, that didn't sound like MacArthur.

In the next two hours the train stopped five or six times for
air raid alarms. Watchers along the track waved to the engineer

D . y Google

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when they spotted planes overhead. He blew the whistle and
everybody got out of the train and scattered into the fields.
When the planes passed over the whistle blew again and we
climbed back aboard. Near the small station of San Marcos
about thirty-five miles north of Manila the alarm turned out
to be the real thing. By that time we knew of the bombing of
Tarlac station.

The planes came over from the direction of Manila. They
were the lowest that I had seen Jap heavy bombers flying, so
low we could easily see the Rising Sun and the retracted land-
ing gear. They couldn't have been over eight thousand feet.
There were nine in the first "V" and they flew straight over
the train.

Suddenly, from all around us, anti-aircraft batteries opened
up. Three inchers and 37-mm.'s and even machine guns pep-
pered the sky around the planes. We crawled out from the
ditch where we were sheltering and cheered.

*'Hit the god-damn' bastards 1 Knock them downl*'

The shells burst all around the planes. Finally they broke
formation, and the last three swung out and away to the south.
Then, when they were out of range, they joined up again. Nine
more came over, then nine more. These last two flights also
broke formation, but as far as we could see none was hit.

Those planes had been to Olangapo, where they plastered
the American naval station and pounded the 4th U. S. Marines
who had come down from Shanghai just before the war started.
They also hit Fort Wint and as a result of their attacks our
forces were driven out of Olangapo and Fort Wint and the
shores of Subic Bay were open to the Japs. But fortunately, the
Japs never found it out.

We rode all the way into Manila on top of the freight car
and all along the way the people were still cheering and salut-
ing with the *'V** signal and shouting, "Keep 'em flyingl"

I went straight to our office in the TVT and just as I walked
in the telephone rang. It was from Admiral Hart's ofl&ce. The

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admiral had a "Christmas present" for the people of America
—and of the Philippines, One of his subs had sunk a ship, or
damaged one, in a harbor on Luzon. After what we had seen it
didn't seem very important. After all, the Japs were already
ashore in force and sinking or damaging one of their ships now
wasn't going to affect the battle of Luzon very much.

It was dark by the time I finished writing my stories and
went back to the Manila Hotel for a shave and bath. I was
pretty ragged and dirty, but the people sitting around the big
Christmas tree in the lobby crowded around and begged for
news. I told them everything was going all right, that the 26th
Cavalry and our tanks were doing wonders, and that as soon
as our airplanes arrived from the United States we would get
busy and push the Japs back into the sea.

*'But why didn't our Asiatic Fleet and our subs sink their
ships before they reached the Philippines?" they asked. I didn't
know the answer to that one, at the time.

Mel and Annalee Jacoby came over for Christmas dinner,
and Russell Brines came by from the office and joined us. We
had turkey and a bottle of champagne, and they told me what
had been going on in Manila. The Japs had bombed the water
front the day before, and had killed thirty people in one of the
big buildings opposite Pier 7. They didn't know any reason
why Manila should be declared an open city. The people were
still full of fight and confidence.

Brines asked Annalee to dance and I said to Mel, 'It looks
like everything is folding up, fast. Time to get moving some-
where. Especially you, as you are on their black list for your
work for the Chinese government in Chungking."

"I hear that your name is about third on their Navy's black
list," Mel said. "You better not stick around too long either."

I spread out my Standard Oil road map on the table and we
began looking for ways out. We puzzled over the names of
islands we had never heard of before. The only way seemed to
be south, first to the island of Mindoro and then on down

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through the Philippine Archipelago and eventually to the
Dutch East Indies. We didn't know if transportation was avail-
able, but we agreed to investigate in the morning.

When the Jacobys left, Brines and I w^ent up to my room. I
had moved from the air-conditioned section of the hotel to the
fourth floor, where I had a wide window and an unobstructed
view of the docks and bay. We sat in front of the window, in
the blackout, looking at the bay, which was lighted by a few
bomb-lit fires along the shore and by the moon and Venus,
whose path was clearly visible even in the moonlight and fire-
light. Corregidor, looking like a huge whale looming out of
the water, seemed only a few miles away.

I told Brines our experiences in the last four days, and a
number of things that can't be written even yet.

He said, "Write it."

"Not a chance," I said. **Not even Hollywood would go for
it. All the fires and falling oflE clifiFs and nearly stepping on land
mines, and just not getting killed at Tarlac, and the rest of it.
It s too melodramatic.'*

I was about to say more when Cavite suddenly blew up right
in front of my face.

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IHE first explosion was a blinding white flash which rolled
and spread across the bay. There was blast after blast, which
rattled all the walls in Manila, and then soaring columns of
flame. There were no enemy planes in the air and we realized
instantly that it was not an air raid but that our own Navy had
decided the Battle of the Philippines was lost and was itself de-
stroying stores and shore installations and ammunition to keep
them from falling into the hands of the enemy. "Jesusl" Russell
said, not irreverently, '* we've been building that place up for
more than forty years. Now we blow it up. That's the end of the
U.S.A. in the Philippines for a while.''

Just to see if we could do it we picked up a newspaper and
read some of the small type by the light of the explosions nine
miles away. The white flashes of burning powder were punctu-
ated by red streaks as exploding shells shot into the air.

"Since Dewey sailed in here a lot of people have watched a
lot of spectacular sunsets across this bay," I said, "but nobody
has seen any like this before."

"That's a sunrise, too," Russell said. "The Rising Sun of
Dai Nippon."

Too dazed to do anything but just sit and watch, I told Rus-
sell, "You write the story." He took my portable typewriter
and began to write by the light of the explosions. His story was
a masterpiece, not only for its description of the scene but as an
account of the general public bewilderment at the way things
were going in the Philippines. When I got to New York I
went to The AP office to look up the story in the files, but it
had never come through. Apparently the censors killed it.

That same night Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander in
chief of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet, climbed over the deck of one of
his submarines and stepped down into the conning tower.

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With his piercing eye, which his subordinates said could drill
a hole in the armor of a battleship, he looked around at the men
he was leaving behind. He said, **Good-by and good luck/'
Then he told the captain of the submarine to set a course for
Java.

Hart had tried to get away the previous night in one of the
few PBY patrol planes that were still flying. I met the pilot
later in Bataan. He told me: '1 had the plane wide open and
running along the water for a take-off when I saw a small boat
crossing my course. I tried to swerve but one of my wings
clipped the boat. We worked all next day to repair the damage
but then the admiral decided to go by submarine. So here I am
with a rifle." Later, the pilot was taken out by submarine to
Australia.

With Hart, in other submarines, went Rear Admiral Wil-
liam Glassford and a number of other staff officers. Only a few
high ranking naval men stayed behind. Rear Admiral Rock-
well went to Corregidor and set up headquarters for what was
left of the i6th Naval District. Captain Ray and Captain Hoef-
fel and a number of communications men accompanied him.
There were also some torpedo experts who, while the torpe-
does lasted, supplied the PT boats and the submarines that
occasionally came in to Corregidor. These men and the sailors
who fought with rifles in the jungle, and all the other naval
personnel that Hart left behind, fought bravely and well
during the Battle of Bataan.

But the Asiatic Fleet as a whole was never an important
factor in the fight in the Philippines. It was unable to halt the
enemy landings on Luzon or to cause any considerable damage
to the Japanese Fleet.

That was not the fault of the American naval men. The fact
was that the Asiatic Fleet was not a fighting force. It was an in-
effective symbol of naval power, a little stick which the United
States carried while talking loudly in the Far East. Soon after
the war started most of the Fleet went to Java.

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From time to time before he left for Java, Admiral Hart
called in the reporters in Manila or telephoned to give us some
news of the activities of the units under his command. A num-
ber of his patrol planes had been caught on the water and de-
stroyed by Japanese fighter planes at Olangapo, but the planes
that were left did what they could in defense of the Philippines
before they too were withdrawn to the south. The PBY's car-
ried out several scouting and bombing missions despite the
fact that they were too big and slow to defend themselves suc-
cessfully in combat.

At one press conference in his headquarters in the Marsman
Building on the Manila water front. Admiral Hart told us
about what his PBY's had done. "One of them sighted a Japa-
nese battleship of the Kongo class and got a direct hit with a
bomb. When last seen the ship was out of control and its steer-
ing apparatus was obviously crippled."

**Do you think it was sunk?" a reporter asked.

*'Ships that are out of control usually have a difficult time
getting home," the admiral answered. But that one apparently

We heard later that the PBY's that Hart had taken south to
Java with him had continued to fly until all but three were
shot down. They made one raid on Japanese shipping at Jolo.
In the final days of the Battle of the Philippines some PBY's
flew into Corregidor under the muzzles of Japanese guns on
the shores of Cavite and Bataan, and succeeded in rescuing a
number of American nurses.

Hart's submarines didn't have very good hunting in the
days when the Japanese were landing on Luzon. One subma-
rine went into Lingayen Gulf on the morning of December
22. It drew a bead on the nearest Japanese transport and fired
a torpedo. The sub commander pinned his eye to the telescope
and watched the wake of the torpedo headed straight at the
enemy ship. Nothing happened. The torpedo had gone under
the shallow-draft vessel. The submarine submerged.

did.

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Then a Japanese destroyer raced over and dropped depth
charges around the submarine. The waters of Lingayen Gulf
are only eighty-six feet deep in that area and the "ash cans'*
burst all around the sub. For three days it was pinned to the
bottom, after which it finally escaped and got back into Manila
on Christmas Day.

I met one of the crew, a husky, bearded veteran chief petty
officer who had spent twelve years in submarines. We were in a
restaurant and he was telling about the experience in Lin-
gayen, when the air raid siren sounded. The sailor rushed to
the door and looked frantically for a taxi. **Take it easy," I ad-
vised him. *'The Japs have never bombed this part of the
city.''

"To hell with this," he said. "Don't you realize that this is
dangerous? I'm going back to my submarine where it's safe.*'

That submarine and its crew were still in action many
months later. It made at least one trip into Corregidor to bring
supplies and to take out naval personnel, and on its way out it
attacked three Japanese destroyers in the narrow waters of the
Philippines. Lieutenant Vince Schumacher who had served
with the PT boats was on board the sub and told me about it,

"We spent three days on the bottom after firing our fish and
were bounced around the whole time. The lights went out and
the paint was knocked oflE the hull but the skipper never
stopped grinning. He actually liked it. Said that after the ex-
perience in Lingayen he didn't feel good unless a scrap was
going on. His feeling must have been catching because I've de-
cided that I prefer subs to PT boats. I'm on my way home now
to get training for submarine work."

Outside of the press conferences called by Hart, as spokes-
man for the "silent service," we didn't have much opportunity
for contact with the Navy during the days when our Army was
withdrawing into Bataan. We soon realized that our concept
of the Asiatic Fleet as a "suicide" force which would rip into
the Japs before they reached Luzon was erroneous. What Hart

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did was to keep his force intact and to use it to protect ships
which fled from Manila to Malaya and Java. The surface force
remained nearly intact— until the battle of the Java Sea.

En route to Java, the U.S.S. Marblehead was bombed for
hours by Japanese planes which left it lying helpless in the
water. Those of the crew who were not killed patched up the
ship somehow and finally brought it safely to New York after
an epic trip halfway around the world.

The Houston, and the American destroyers Pillsbury and
Pope were sent to the bottom in the Java Sea battle, but two
other destroyers succeeded in escaping past Bali and reached
Australia.

Months later I went aboard one of the destroyers in a tiny
port in the South Seas to which she had just escorted a convoy.
Officers told me that prior to the Java Sea battle four American
destroyers had encountered a Japanese convoy in Macassar
Straits and had damaged four of the enemy transports in a
night sea battle.

That, they said, was all there was to the so-called Macassar
Straits battle, which was hailed in Allied newspapers at the
time as a great victory for our forces.

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IHE morning papers of December 26 announced that Gen-
eral MacArthur had proclaimed Manila an open city in a
declaration dated December 24. The Tribune and Bulletin
headlines said, ''Manila Open City/' The Spanish language
papers headlined, ''Manila es Ciudad Abierta." In Tagalog
and Ilocano and Viscayan the dialect newspapers made the
same announcement-

When I went out of the hotel in the morning I saw that the
troops of New Mexico's 200th had departed and taken their
anti-aircraft guns with them. Only the pits they had dug and
their foxholes remained along the bay front. The machine
guns were gone from the walls of Intramuros. The fires at
Cavite were billowing white and black smoke high into the
morning air, and there were oil fires at Nichols Field.

In the streets and in restaurants and offices I heard the
people of Manila discussing this new tum of events.

''What is this ciudad abierta, this open city?'*

"It means that we are removing all our forces from the city
and asking the enemy not to bomb it. The purpose is to safe-
guard lives and prevent destruction of that which we do not
have the forces to defend."

"It is what they did in Paris before the government fled and
the Germans came in/'

"Does it mean that the enemy is coming here? What has hap-
pened to our Army?"

"Our Army is fighting well. Have you not read the com-
muniques?"

"It means, in effect, that we are throwing ourselves on the
mercy of the enemy."

"Yes, of an enemy whose soldiers spread murder and rape
throughout China.*'

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Where is the American Navy and why does it not smash
their invasion fleet?"

''Maybe it would be better if we would fight the Japanese
in the streets and from our houses, as they did in Odessa.
Maybe we should fight them with our knives and bolos and
clubs. Maybe it would be better to die fighting than to let them
kill us later, at their leisure. After all, if we hold them for a few
days, help will be here from our big brothers/*

By that time I had begun to realize that we did not have the
forces to defend Manila and to suspect that the path to the
capital was being thrown open to the Japanese in the hope
that when they arrived in the city without having to fight, they
would be well under control of their officers and would observe
discipline; whereas if they came in fighting and overwhelmed
our forces they %vould be more likely to rape and kill and loot.

We were still hopeful that the tide would turn, even though
the Japanese had poured more men into the battle in northern
Luzon and on the 26th reached a point less than one hundred
miles from the capital. MacArthur and his staff had ''taken the
field" on the 24th. Rumors spread that MacArthur was massing
his forces north of the capital on the plains of Pampanga and
that a decisive battle would be fought there. The hope of the
populace rose, because the people loved MacArthur and be-
lieved no enemy on earth could defeat him.

Secretary Knox gave fresh encouragement when he an-
nounced that the United States Navy was taking definite and
positive measures which would result in aid to the Philip-
pines. But the optimism lasted only until the people read
President Roosevelt's promise that the freedom of the Philip-
pines w^ould be ''redeemed.'" ''Redeemed!'* That meant that
the war was lost.

Fear spread through Manila and the rate of exodus from the
city increased. The roads back into the hills were black with
people striving to reach their native villages before the mur-
derous armies overwhelmed them. The few trains still run*

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ning into the provinces were literally jammed to the car tops.
The business district, which, despite the air raids, had been
crowded with shoppers on December 24, began to look de-
serted. The Japanese stores had been closed the day the war
started, and now many Filipino, American, and Chinese estab-
lishments closed their doors.

High Commissioner Sayre tried to restore the confidence of
the people. He declared that the declaration of an open city
did not mean surrender in the Philippines. *'We will fight to
the last man!'*

The military authorities ordered that the blackout be ter-
minated and the city's lights turned on in keeping with the
"opening" of the city. That first night, police had to go through
the streets and threaten many residents with arrest unless they
tore down their blackout curtains and lighted their lights. The
people clung to the darkness, fearing that lights would invite
night attacks by the enemy airplanes.

The Japanese considered the opening of the city a cynical
and "unilateral'' act, without binding force on themselves.
They considered it an invitation to bomb. They came in mid-
morning of December 27, while we were at the USAFFE press
conference. The conference had been shifted from No. 1 Calle
Victoria to a convent school around the comer. Lieutenant
Colonel Herb Harries, a West Pointer who had been recalled
to active service, had replaced Major Diller as spokesman.

Colonel Harries was cool and a little sardonic at times and
he spoke firmly and decisively. He was reading the morning
communique in a slow, clear voice when the first bombs hit
the water front only a few hundred yards away. When the
bombs burst one reporter started running and then there was
a general stampede into the patio where some threw them-
selves on their faces and others crouched behind pillars.

When the planes passed we climbed shamefacedly to our
feet and went back to the office. Colonel Harries was still seated
at his desk. He looked at us over his glasses.

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"You were saying, Colonel—"

The colonel picked up where he had left off and finished his
statement deliberately. He told us the Japs advancing from
the north had reached Moncada, only eighty-five miles from
Manila.

We waited out the rest of the morning raid in a big trench in
front of the barracks across from No. i Victoria.

The planes came back again about three in the afternoon
and for two hours they plastered the water front area where
members of the Army Quartermaster Corps were forced to
abandon their work of loading supplies into barges and trucks.
The supplies were being sent to Corregidor. I noticed that the
big freighter Don Josi had departed. The Japanese bombing
was erratic that day and most of the bombs landed in the water
between the piers. Some holes were torn in the street along the
water front and a few fires started.

Jacoby and I watched the bombing from my hotel window.

**What have you found out about ways to get out of here?"

**The best way seems to be to go from here to Batangas by
car. It is about forty miles due south. From there ^ve can prob-
ably get a motor launch to the island of Mindoro, then pick up
a banca and sail a short way down the coast, get another banca
and make our way from island to island."

Bancas are small canoes carved out of tree trunks and
equipped with double outriggers to give them stability. Many
of them have sails.

**If we can make the island of Mindanao," I said, ''we can
probably get a bigger boat, a Moro fishing vinta, and run
through the straits between Zamboanga and Jolo and get to
Borneo and then to the Dutch East Indies."

**How about going around the east coast of Mindanao and
trying to reach Australia?"

"That is another possibility, but we'll have to sneak past
Davao at night. The Japs have Davao now."

We decided to wait another day or two.

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When I got back from the office late that evening I found
Captain Villamor of the Philippine Air Force sitting alone in
the Bamboo Grill at the Manila Hotel. None of the Americans
there recognized him as the aviator who had just received the
DSC and the Oak Leaf cluster for his two air victories over the
Japanese, Jess looked like a lonesome man with no place to
go. There were two beds in my room and I invited him to
spend the night there.

Out of his airplane, there was nothing of the daredevil about
Jess. He was serious, sincere, and thoughtful, a student of his
people, and he was worried about them now. Several other
pilots from his squadron joined us and we talked things over
for a couple of hours.

In the morning I awakened in the middle of a nightmare. I
had dreamed that bombs were dropping somewhere near by. I
opened my eyes. Jess Villamor was gone, the sun was shining,
and there was no noise. I went back to sleep.

Then the dream started again and I jumped out of bed. I was
just in time to see huge columns of water spurting up around
two ships, both new freighters of about 3,000 tons, which were
anchored inside the breakwater directly in front of the hotel
and about eight hundred yards from my window. The planes
went away and nine others came over, very low. They were
twin-engined bombers.

For over an hour they attacked the ships in relays of three
"V's," each consisting of nine planes. Finally their bombs hit
just alongside the ship farthest from shore. It began to settle
immediately and in a few minutes it was resting on the bottom
with only its masts and the top of its bridge standing above the
shallow water. Then the bombers went after the other ship.

I took a few pictures with my movie camera as the bombers
made their runs and then I dressed and went down to the
lobby. There were people sitting on the wide stairs and in
chairs, and others walking around. You could hear the air-
plane motors clearly and each time they approached, the people

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drew up their muscles tensely. When the bombs hit and burst,
everyone made an instinctive protective motion to duck. If two
people were sitting side by side, one would duck to the left and
the other to the right. Others would crouch down close to the
floor.

One plump blond woman in pink slacks kept walking about
the lobby. With each series of explosions she would throw her-
self flat on the floor and roll frantically over and over until the
noise subsided. Then she would rise and pace back and forth
again.

I walked through the lobby and the huge dining and dance
pavilion. A group of Spanish jai alai pkyers were sitting on
the railing on the bay side watching the bombing, and Frank
Hewlett and Bert Covitt of the United Press. We watched the
bombers come over again and again, trying to hit the remain-
ing ship. Finally they got one direct hit on the forecastle and it
started to settle. In twenty minutes it was on the bottom. It did
not catch fire and we didn't see anybody get off.

During the bombing the hotel waiters placed a large table in
the center of the dance floor and served a buffet lunch, with
apologies for not producing the usual menu.

In making their runs on the target the bombers came di-
rectly toward us sometimes, and sometimes from back over our
heads. But we had a fair amount of confidence in their bomb-
ing by then and were pretty sure they weren't trying to hit the
hotel, so we stayed and watched. After the bombers laid their
eggs and went over the city we heard the brief tack-a-tack-a-
tack-a of machine-gun fire. The tail gunners in the planes were
apparently trying to hit the trucks along the water front, or
maybe just keeping their hands in.

Usually the planes came nine by nine by nine, but some-
times all twenty-seven would drop at once. They had a beauti-
ful maneuver for tuming and regaining formation. The
middle nine would fly straight ahead while the right-hand nine
broke away and climbed and the left-hand group turned off

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and dived slightly. The three sections would make their turns
independently, and the middle one fly straight back toward
the target. Then the right-hand group would dive and the sec-
tion on the left climb, both coming back into position by the
leader simultaneously. They had so many bombs that it was
obvious they were flying from bases pretty close by, probably
at Aparri, and didn't have to take up mucJi of their load with
gasoline.

After sinking the second ship they stayed away so long that
we thought they had gone to rearm and refuel. Hewlett and
Covitt went back to their ofiice and I went inside to get a sand-
wich. By that time Mel Jacoby had come over. Mel and I heard
the planes again. There were forty-nine now. They flew in from
the bay, over the water front and MacArthur's headquarters
without dropping, and then let go their bombs over the north-
west comer of Intramuros. The whole comer of the walled
city seemed to rise in the air. Flames and smoke shot up.

Jacoby and I got in his car and drove over. All of our soldiers
had gone from Intramuros and when they left the Filipinos
had become frightened and fled to the hills. The stores and
houses were closed tighL

We parked a block from the fires and walked over. The
streets were littered with dust and rubble, and wooden slats
and sheets of tin from the roofs. Several buildings were caved
in completely. Two Catholic schools had been hit squarely.
From the dust in the streets I picked up a school copybook,
with English phrases in it, and a small American flag.

Flames were licking an upper comer of one of the twin
towers of the Santo Domingo Church and the firemen were try-
ing to get their hoses connected. The firemen had rushed in un-
hesitatingly even though they had heard of the Cavite bomb-
ing where all the firemen were machine-gunned by Jap planes
and killed in the streets. For a while they seemed to get the fire
in the tower under control. Then their water pressure failed,
and the flames ate around the base of the yellow stone tower

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and it toppled into the streets. The upper part crashed through
the roof of the Santa Catarina girls' school, which had received
a direct hit and was already burning inside.

Several nuns of the order of the Sisters of Charity rushed out
through the doorway into the street. Priests were walking
about, dazedly. It was their church of Santo Domingo which
had been most active in raising funds for Fascist Franco. One
of them told me, "Our table was set for us and we were just
going to dine. A bomb crashed through the roof and showered
the table with wreckage. None of us was hurt."

We went into another school around the comer and saw the
body of a young boy who had been killed by shrapnel. An at-
tendant told us, ''It is fortunate that most of the children were
sent home a week ago."

Around the comer, facing the Pasig River, a bomb had
crashed through the roof of the Intendencia building, the old
treasury. Thirty people crouching on the floor were killed. In
front of the building was a cremated body in a bumed out
automobile.

We saw what the Japs— possibly— had been aiming at. The
target possibly was four small ships, anchored in the Pasig
River 150 yards from the nearest part of the Walled City. If
that was the Jap target they released a quarter of a mile too
soon. If they had made the same error on the other side all their
bombs would have plunged into the heart of the business dis-
trict across the river. As it was, only one did. It hit a fire station.

The next day it was the same medicine, only more so. The
Jap bombers came so low that it was insulting. I watched most
of the raid from the Bayview Hotel, on Dewey Boulevard and
opposite Sayre's residence, where I had gone to confer with
Mel and Annalee about the chances of getting out.

Most of the moming the bombers plastered the water front.
They made their runs up Dewey Boulevard and right over
Sayre's residence so low that we could see the bomb bays open
and the wheels retracted into the fuselage. We estimated they

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were at 6,000 feet. We thought they might hit Sayre*s residence,
so when they reached the likely release point, directly opposite
our hotel, we would duck under a bed or against a wall. But
they kept pounding Pier 7 and got one hit, near the end of the
pier. The other bombs landed in the water.

They were bombing in nine-nine-nine formation. Then
they swung out over the bay and all twenty-seven lined up in a
single big V. They flew straight in from the bay and over the
water front and released over the Walled City. Their bombs
crashed into the same northwest comer which had been devas-
tated the afternoon before. The fires started at once, and flared
up tremendously.

Jacoby and I went over. We found that Santo Domingo
Church had been hit again, and the Intendencia, and there was
one direct hit on the DMHM newspapers building. It set fire
to the newsprint and flames swept through the building. Two
of the ships in the Pasig were sunk, but even on the bottom
their superstructures projected well out of the shallow water.

We went over to USAFFE to get the afternoon communi-
que. I offered condolences to Major Romulo for the loss of his
newspapers. Somehow, he managed to grin. ''Oh, it doesn't
matter. I was planning a new building anyway." My personal
feud with Rommy was dead from that moment on.

Rommy took me aside. ''The newspaper is nothing," he said.
**I have just received word that the Japanese machine-gunned
the native town of my mother. I have no word from her. My
oldest son who is a captain in the Army is reported missing and
probably dead."

Then he handed us the communique. It said, "Lines holding
firm on all fronts."

I said to Jacoby, ''Somehow these communiques don't sound
right to me. Let s go see for ourselves."

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JDEFORE Starting out next morning, December 29, Jacoby
and I stopped at No. 1 Calle Victoria to see Colonel Harries
and try to find out what was going on.

"Where are General MacArthur s field headquarters?" I
asked* "We want to go up and have a look."

The colonel wanted to help us, but he was in possession of
secrets which meant success or failure to our forces and he
couldn't tell us too much. While we were talking Major Diller
came in. We were surprised to see him, as he had left town
with MacArthur and the rest of the staff.

"Look," he said, "all I can say is this. If I were in your posi-
tion I would try to locate headquarters on Bataan. I am leav-
ing Manila myself in a few minutes."

We tried to detain him long enough to get some more defi-
nite information. He seemed to us our last link with the Army
and we didn't want to lose contact completely.

"Bataan?" we said. "We thought headquarters were at the
Lingayen front. And where the hell is Bataan?"

"Look at Mariveles on your maps and you'll find Bataan,"
the major said.

We found Bataan was a peninsula, shaped like a miniature
Florida, whose southern end pointed at Corregidor. On the
eastern and southern shores it was bounded by Manila Bay and
on the west by the China Sea. We had heard that Mariveles was
a naval base. We figured that possibly General Wainwright, as
field commander, was going to set up his headquarters there
to direct the battle on the Pampanga plains, which by that
time we felt sure would be the scene of die big United States
versus Jap showdown.

Manila looked empty as we drove out to the north. There
was less traffic and more stores were closed. Smoke was still

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surging up from Cavite and from the fires that our demolition
squads had set at Nichols Field, Zablan Field, and Fort Mc-
Kinley.

A few miles out of the city we started to run into traffic, all
going north. It was mostly convoys of busses, with Philippine
Army troops in their blue denim uniforms, with a sprinkling of
khaki. Jap planes were patrolling over the road and we won-
dered why they didn't dive down and strafe the convoys. Four
dive bombers were circling over the bridge at San Marcos
where I had witnessed the anti-aircraft firing on Christmas
afternoon. We drove across as fast as possible. On this bridge
and all the others we saw wooden boxes piled up at each end.
They were stenciled in red *'Dynamite. DuPont," and were
camouflaged with tree branches.

Four or five times the air raid wardens in small towns along
the road signaled us to stop, and we dived into ditches. The
towns consisted of only a few huts on stilts lining the road and
possibly a wooden general store and a few streets extending
away from the main highway. Most of the buildings were
closed.

As we passed the big sugar mill and neared San Fernando
the road was choked with northbound traffic and we had to
slow up. We looked at our map and saw that the road into
Bataan branched off to the left from San Fernando and curved
southward, finally ending at Mariveles. To get onto the north
road to Baguio you made a right turn in the center of San
Fernando and then a left turn.

A staff car drew up behind us and we saw an officer we knew.

"Say,*' we questioned, ''where are General Wainwright's
headquarters? We heard this morning that they were at Tar-
lac, and now they tell us he is ten miles farther back in this
direction."

''You'll probably find him even ten miles nearer now than
when you heard that last word," the officer said. I knew General
Wainwright's reputation as a fighter who led his troops.

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*'You can bet your bolo/' I said, "that Wainwright is at the
front, wherever it is. If Wainwright is coming back this way
that means that the front is moving this way."

Jacoby said, ''It looks like the front is moving back toward
us faster than we are going toward it."

"This calls for a little investigating."

We pulled into San Fernando and parked just south of the
old arched bridge and the cathedral. Where we stopped there
was suddenly no more traffic, and we saw that all the trucks
were turning into the left-hand road a few hundred yards be-
hind us, the road that our maps showed led to Bataan. We went
back and stood there and watched the busses and trucks go
past.

A Filipino officer got out of a Chevrolet in front of us and I
recognized Major Garcia who had been in command at
Baguio. We swapped delighted abrazos.

**So you made it," he said.

"And you. Felicidades! How did you do it?"

"I walked out over to the Cabanatuan road and then got a
bus down into Manila. We blew up the bridges on both roads
into Baguio but I have heard the Japs are already there."

"What is going on now?"

"I was assigned to another regiment and ordered to Batan-
gas down south of Manila where it appeared the Japs were
about to land. They have been bombing all the small towns
down that way and strafing the markets just for the hell of it.
They didn't land and last night we were ordered north. We
have been traveling all night and here we are.'*

"And where are you going?"

"To the Bataan Peninsula. That is where we are to fight."
"Buena suerte."

Again Bataan. We studied our map. Most of the area seemed
to be mountainous and there were only a few towns, most of
them on the Manila Bay shore. We debated going there and
decided against it. Some American officers came up.

r

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"If you fellows are looking for news we suggest that you
drive about five miles east along the dirt road to the town of
Mexico. The Twenty-sixth Cavalry is bivouacked there, and
they have been fighting the Japs since they landed at Linga-
yen."

A few miles along the road we met a chaplain attached to a
Filipino Scout field artillery regiment, under American of-
ficers. He led us to one of the batteries, which was stationed
just off the road and well concealed in a thicket of trees.

We performed mutual introductions. I remember only two
of the officers' names. They were Major Vepsala, the battery
commander, and Lieutenant Larry Smarr, an ex-reporter for
the St. Louis Post Dispatch. There was another youngster, a
captain, who was the son of an American general. I believe his
name was Wood.

Larry said, *'Our guns— seventy-fives— are up ahead there. We
are just firing some test shots. The Japs seem to be quite a
ways north still, some forty miles or so, but they are coming
down fast. We are getting set to go into action here."

Filipino Scouts were operating the field telephone and range-
finding apparatus in a big truck. I asked the major about them.
"No better soldiers in the world," he said.

Several of the officers had seen Captain Colin Kelly's death
plunge after Jap fighters hopped his big B-17, and they told us
the story. I borrowed Larry's portable typewriter and wrote it
there. We offered to take back New Year's messages to be sent
to their families and their girls back home, and Larry typed
them out while the others dictated. I charged them to my per-
sonal account at Mackay Radio but I never got a bill. Maybe
Mackay won't mind not being paid for them until after the
war.

"If you want some real stories," Larry said, *'go on down the
road to Mexico and find the Twenty-sixth."

Mexico was another typical lowlands town, with a few dirt
streets laid out in squares, nipa houses on stilts, and trees every-

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where. In none of these towns were tliere any sidewalks.

We found two officers of the 26th bivouacked along a stream.
One was from Boston, tall, with high cheekbones flushed a
healthy red. He was as dapper and immaculate as if he had just
stepped out of Abercrombie and Fitch's. He gave us some cof-
fee but he wouldn't talk about the war without permission of
his colonel. The other officer told us he had been stationed
with a squad of men as a lookout at a small to^vn on the east
coast of Luzon. They got orders to withdraw and blew up the
radio station. Then they rode their horses over the mountain
and joined the regiment. The Japs had bombed them, but not
hit them. Fifth colunmists had given them plenty of trouble
and seemed to have some means of disclosing their whereabouts
to the enemy bombers.

We found headquarters in another street in the open air.
The officers were just sitting down to mess and they asked us to
join them. They introduced us to their commander. Colonel
Clinton Pierce. Pierce was stocky, with black hair parted in
the middle and a strong, leathery face^ He hadn't spoken two
sentences before we guessed his home town.

**Are you a Dodger rooter, Colonel?'*

''Have been all my life," he said.

"I don't know whether I'm bad luck for you fellows, or vice
versa," he said. ''Anyway, there's one of you here already." We
shook hands with Franz Weisblatt of the UP, whom we had
difficulty recognizing under his black beard. He had joined
the 26th the day after their battle at Tayug and had been ^\dth
them since. He stayed with them all the way into Bataan, where
he was cut off and captured, after being wounded while tlirow-
ing hand grenades at the enemy. Tokyo decided that throwing
hand grenades deprived him of his nonprofessional status and
treated him as a prisoner of war instead of a civilian to be in-
terned.

"We hear you fought the Japs for four days at Lingayen,
Colone^^^ What do you think of them as scrappers?*'

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**Hell," said the colonel, *'you can hear anything. You can
even hear that I'm a hero. None of us are heroes. All we did was
fight the bastards. That doesn't make us heroes. It s our job."

Little by little he told us the story, and we could see he was
dioosing his words deliberately in order to play down his own
part in it.

"It was a week ago this morning that the Japs came ashore
at Da Mortis, where we were stationed. Da Mortis is a town
like this one. We fought 'em in the streets and under the
houses, with rifles and machine guns. We stopped 'em cold all
morning and most of the afternoon. By 2 P.M. we had beaten
back their first attack and had them on the run.

* 'Somewhere further up the beach, at a place whidi must
have been undefended, they got some tanks ashore. We were
supposed to have tanks backing us up, but they never showed
up. The Japs drove into Da Mortis in their tanks and we
peppered them with rifles and machine guns. They didn't
seem to know what to do next. But we couldn't stop their
tanks, and they were coming in behind us, so we had to with-
draw.

**We got back to our horses and during the night we re-
treated to Rosario, We threw a circle around the town, taking
positions in rice fields, behind the irrigation ditches, and sat
down to wait for them. They hit us again the next morning.

**Thcy came walking up the road and across the fields, little
guys in brown uniforms. We waited for them to get close and
then let them have iL We mowed down the first ones and the
others flopped on their bellies. They threw a ring around us.
They shot and shot and shot at us all day long and so help
me God they never hit a damned thing. Our casualties were
one man hit in the hand and one horse killed.

"Then the troops which had come around in our rear with-
drew, leaving the way open for us to draw back. But our horses
were bivouacked over to the left. We could have gone away
and left them, but all of us love horses so we fought our way

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over to them. In the afternoon we pulled back to Pozomibio/*

He told us about Major Trapnell of the 26th "who set fire
to a bridge and saved a lot of us from getting killed out on the
road. We were riding down the road and the Japs came after
us with tanks, firing their 37-millimeter guns onto the con-
crete pavement so they exploded among our rear guard. We
couldn't turn into the fields so we just had to take it. Trap-
nell drove a truck back onto the bridge and set it on fire. The
bridge burned down and stopped the Jap tanks." Neither
Jacoby nor I understood Trapnell's name at the time. We
thought Colonel Pierce was saying "Chaplain."

"The next day it was the same damn' thing/' Colonel
Pierce went on. "They shot and shot and fired a million shots
and made a hell of a lot of noise and couldn't hurt us at all.
Then in the afternoon their tanks came. Our lines were along
the road through the center of the town. Two of their tanks
got on the road. Two others parked around the comer of the
nipa huts and started shooting at nothing in particular. Lieu-
tenant Sid Marks, a youngster from Hollywood, crawled up
to toss a grenade into the tanks. He got within ten yards before
they spotted him and cut him down with machine-gun bullets.
He was still crawling forward when he died."

Jacoby told the colonel that he had met Marks in Manila
just before the war. Sid had told him, "I came out to get in on
this war. I have a hunch that I'm going to get killed. But it's
going to be a hell of a lot of fun while it lasts."

The colonel continued his story. "We withdrew a little
ways, into the fields back of the town. The tanks followed us
and spread out around us in a semicircle and began to pour it

"Major Ketchum saw the fix we were in and went back and
got one of our seventy-fives on half tracks. He drove do\\m
the road full tilt and right into the middle of their tanks. He
started firing his seventy-five and knocked off the tanks right
and left. But he got too confident. One of the Jap tanks fired a

m.

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37-millimeter shell that killed him instantly. For a wonder his
driver was not killed,

*'We pulled back again that night, to Binalonan, fought all
the next day, and then fell back to Tayug. That was Christmas

I interrupted the colonel to thank him for the fact that I
was still alive, or at any rate not captured. I told him about
our arrival in Tayug Christmas Eve, after the hike from
Baguio.

**Well,'* he said, ''it's a good thing we were out there in
front of you/'

Then he went on. "Next day we fought them all day at
Tayug and held them until their tanks and planes came over.
We couldn't do much against their planes with rifles. In those
four days of fighting we lost twelve of our thirty-six American
officers and about two hundred of our men.

"Headquarters ordered us to withdraw to these positions.
The situation is this. V/e are covering the right flank while
General Wainwright straightens out his lines. In other words,
we had to pull our main forces back from Lingayen Gulf to
prevent the Japs from swinging in behind them from Tayug
and cutting them off."

"What is your professional opinion of the Jap Army, Colo-
nel, from what you have seen of it?" I asked.

"My professional estimate is that they are no damn' good
on the ground. These fellows they sent against us were nothing
but untrained kids. They are shooting popguns and they are
dressed like a ragged mob. To call their doughboys fourth-
rate is being charitable. They can't shoot a rifle, and my
Scouts were picking them oflE right and left. They get con-
fused easily and if you shoot at them they stop coming. On
the other hand, their tanks and planes were too much for us.

"I don't know where the bloody blue hell our own tanks
and planes were, but as soon as they get up here we'll chase
those Japs back into the sea."

Eve.

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He asked a question: "How many ships did they land from
at Lingayen?"

''The USAFFE communique said there were eighty-six
ships there. The officers at Baguio counted fifty-six a week ago
this afternoon."

"Well, that ought to give you a line on how lousy they are.
There was only one regiment, the Twenty-Sixth, fighting
them, and they must have had a good many thousand soldiers if
they had all those ships. We whipped hell out of 'em on the
ground, and if we had had any tank and airplane support
we'd have slaughtered the whole lot.

"Their strategy was lousy too," the colonel went on. "We
drew inland, to the east, and the whole damned crew followed
us. If they had cut to the west they'd have surrounded our
forces at Lingayen before we had a chance to straighten our

All this was during lunch. The tin plates were heaping and
there was fresh bread and some dessert and coffee. Once we
were interrupted by the shout, "Planes." Nine silver bombers
flew over us, but they kept straight on their course toward
Manila.

The colonel arranged for us to interview a number of his
Scouts who had been captured by the Japs and then released
with an admonition to go home and live in peace away from
the "white imperialists." Instead of going home, they had hot-
footed back to report to the colonel, get new guns, and gone
on fighting. While we went aside to talk to the Scouts a staff
car drove up and a messenger handed the colonel a dispatch.

When we had the stories the colonel called us back. "I
don't know what the hell is going on but we have orders to
withdraw again. We are to move south and west and transfer
all the way over to cover our left flank."

On the way back to San Fernando we stopped at the artil-
lery position—I believe it was the 86th Field-Artillery— to
pick up some more New Year's messages. The artillerymen

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had orders to move too, they told us. "Just when we were get-
ting set up/'

Franz Weisblatt drove back into Manila with us and we
stopped along the roadside for a conference. Comparing notes,
we decided that part of the army was moving into Bataan—
though we didn't know why— and that tliere still would be a
fight on the plains of Pampanga.

**In those rice fields, even though they are dry now, the Japs
should have trouble using their tanks."

'*By the time the fighting starts in earnest some of those
planes should be here from the United States. They've had
nearly three weeks now and it only takes about a week to fly
them via Hawaii-Canton Island-Australia. The Navy should
be getting into action soon, too— we hope."

**While we are getting those planes the Japs are going to
give us an awful lot of trouble with their own dive bombers.
As far as their infantry is concerned, everybody who has
fought them agrees these are pretty poor troops. Looks like
they sent about the third team down here and the first string
into Malaya."

**Lxx)ks like MacArthur is pulling everything out of the
south and will let them take Manila. We've got to get out in
the field with the Army, or we'll be captured in Manila/'

Weisblatt had been in trouble with the Japanese in Yoko-
hama some years before and the last thing he wanted was to
be captured. He decided he would stick with the 26th. Jacoby
and I were already on the Japw' black list.

Back at the TVT we found out that the Japs had bombed
Corregidor heavily during the afternoon. USAFFE announced
nine planes had been shot down, and we thought, "Now
they'll get it, the Jap bastards. They are tackling one place
that is really ready for them. Just wait till they hit those
American troops up in Pampanga."

Every day since the war started I had tried to cheer up the
editorial workers in the TVT city room, but that afternoon

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I had difficulty smiling when I gave them the usual "V-for-
Victory*' signal. Don Alejandro Roces called me into his office
and informed me that the Japs were advancing fast from the
south, especially from Antimonan where they had landed on
the 24th from forty transports.

From my window at the hotel I could see three new bomb-
lit fires blending their flare with the sunset across the bay-
They were far in the distance. One was at Mariveles and two
appeared to be in the water off the end of Corregidor. I tele-
phoned Carlos, my companion on the trip to Baguio, and
asked him to come up to the hotel.

To my surprise he knew all about the bombing of Mariveles
a few hours earlier. "The bombs burned down the entire
town," he said, "but didn't hit any naval installations except
an ammunition dump. One bomb killed a number of Marines
manning an anti-aircraft gun."

"How in the world did you find all that out?"

"A friend of mine, a Spanish contractor, was over there
this afternoon and just got back. He is helping to build two
airfields on the southern tip of Bataan. He tells me there are
a number of refugees from Manila living in the woods behind
Mariveles, including many Americans."

I told Carlos that the Japs were closing in from the south
and that we were looking for a way out. The Army had made
no provision for us to go with them and we were considering
taking a boat. I asked him to go with us. "You are brave and
resourceful and you know the language. We want you along.
You have no one dependent on you. We will, of course, pay
your expenses and pay you for your services."

Carlos s answer surprised me. "Amigo," he said, "it is per-
fectly all right for you to go if you can no longer do your job
and the end is near. I despise the thought of captivity as
much as you do. But I am a Filipino and this is my country.
If my country's fate is to go through hell I must remain here
to share it with my fellow Filipinos."

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Then he said a lot more, which surprised me still further,
as I had thought him only a young extrovert who loved adven-
ture whether in a war or on the soccer field.

He said, ''Look at me and tell me what you see/*

''I see a healthy young man of medium size, with black hair
and eyes, and a Spanish nose and mouth/'

**And the color of my skin?*'

**A healthy tan. The color that Americans spend hours in
the sun trying to acquire.*'

*'Well," he said, **you obviously don't realize it, because
you don't feel that way yourself, but the color of my skin keeps
me from living in your white world/'

I protested. "In the first place, you are Spanish, and what
does it matter anyway? You have eaten here in the hotel with
me and you can go anywhere you want in Manila."

**I am not all Spanish. One grandmother was a Filipina.
And because of that I cannot go with a white girl of my own
station in life. Her parents will forbid it. I cannot marry one.
In your country I would be looked on as an Oriental and a
half-caste. There are two worlds. Your white one and the
Oriental one."

''Are you trying to say that you subscribe to the Japanese
program of Asia for the Asiatics?"

"Personally, I do not. I believe the Americans will treat us
more fairly. But you must realize that such a program has a
terrific pull for lots of Oriental people. As long as the Ameri-
cans in the Philippines insist on living in their own world
and keeping us in ours, the spiritual and psychological differ-
ences between us will continue to exist and to grow deeper.
And if America doesn't send us help, who knows . . . ?"

"I don't like to hear you talking like an underdog," I said.

He was firm. "That's the way it is," he said. "And if you still
don't understand me, keep an eye on Malaya and Burma and
on what happens in India if the Japs go into those places."

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ERE was a sudden and startling change in the tone of
the morning USAFFE communique on December 30. Colonel
Harries handed it to us at 1 1 A.M. It said, ominously, **Enemy
dive bombers control the roads in northern Luzon." Our
forces had withdrawn from Lingayen Gulf and the "battle
line" ran through Zaragoza, sixty-five miles north of Manila.
The enemy forces advancing from the south reached Luisiana
and Dolores, forty-five air miles southeast of the capital.

The people of Manila were frightened. Up until then the
communiques, although reporting Japanese advances, had
been optimistic. For all the people knew, we were winning
the war and the bombing of Manila was something to be en-
dured due to the temporary absence of pursuit planes. Of
course, our pursuit forces would be replenished shortly. Help
was on the wayl Sayre, among others, had said it: *'Help is
surely coming— help of sufficient adequacy and power so that
the invader will be driven from our midst and be rendered
powerless ever to threaten us again."

That afternoon the USAFFE communique went back to
the old line. It asserted: ''Our forces are holding firmly on all
fronts." Next morning s papers said the same thing, and even
on New Year s Day the people of Manila did not know that
there were NO forces in front of them either to the north or
south.

Later, on Corregidor, before he died of gangrene Colonel
Harries called me aside one day. *'You know," he said, felt
like hell reading you those lies in a pontifical way every day.
But it had to be done. We were trying to deceive the enemy
and to conceal the fact that we were withdrawing into Bataan.
And we were trying to keep the people of Manila from be-
coming panic-stricken. The Japs were going to take Manila

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anyway, and we decided that it would be better if the people
didn't have time to worry about it/'

The papers of the 30th and the 31st printed articles advising
the populace to remain calm and stay indoors in the event
that enemy troops entered the city. No resistance was to be
offered. Even then, the people of Manila had difficulty in re-
alizing that the peaceful lives they had known were at an end.
They had suffered the bombing stoically, heroically, because
of their overwhelming confidence that our forces would smash
the invader.

On the morning of the 30th, members of the American
community were called to a conference with Dr. Claude A.
Buss of the high commissioner s office. Sayre had gone by then
to Corregidor, where that same day President Quezon was
being inaugurated for a second term, and Dr. Buss was in
charge. Buss didn't attempt to soften the blow.

"In a matter of days," he said, '*or perhaps hours, the Japa-
nese will enter and occupy Manila. Our armed forces will not
contest their entry to the city."

The reaction of most of the Americans was, '*Whatl The
Japs come here? By God, they can't do this to us!"

A half-dozen men clamored to be heard. Some of them
wanted to fighL One said, ''We will form our own f)olice force
and arm ourselves from the Cavite arsenal. Many of us have
pistols, and with those we can maintain order."

Dr. Buss had difficulty convincing him that it was highly
unlikely that the Japanese would allow any American to walk
around the streets, let alone carry a pistol.

Another man suggested that they buy all the available food
stocks in town and store them in their homes and simply re-
main indoors. Dr. Buss told them it would be wiser to pack
some clothes and toilet articles and to prepare to be taken to
an internment camp, just as the Japanese civilians in Manila
had done a few days before the war started.

When the Japs finally did enter the city three days later.

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Dr. Buss and Jorge Vargas, who had been left behind by
Quezon went out to meet them under a white flag and ar-
ranged for their peaceable entry into Manila. Buss gave an
inspiring example of fortitude and self-control during those
last unbelievably nightmarish days. On the afternoon of the
30th, a number of correspondents met in the Jacobys' room
on the sixth floor of the Bayview Hotel to try to decide what
we were to do. I had learned that escape to the south was al-
most impossible. Small Jap infiltration squads were already
on the road to Tagaitay, only forty miles away, and Batangas,
the jumping off place for a banca trip to the southern islands.

There was still one possible loophole— to skirt the southern
shore of Manila Bay through Cavite province and reach the
China Sea shore to the south of Corregidor. From there it
might be possible to get southward along the coast by banca,
hiding by day and traveling out to sea and around Japanese-
held areas by night. From my experience in China, I knew
that it was impossible for an invader to occupy every foot of
the country and if you could just learn in advance where
their sentries and outposts were it would be quite easy to slip
around them.

I determined to go to the southem front in the morning to
check on how close the Japanese advance units were to the
city and whether the road to the coast through Cavite was
still open.

On the way to No. 1 Victoria I drove through the dock
area. There had not been any bombing during the day and
the water front was crowded with people. They were helping
themselves to stores which the Army was giving to anybody
who would carry tliem away. Laden with crates and boxes,
the Filipinos were walking out of the water front section. It
was fortunate for the Americans and Filipinos in Manila
that these supplies were distributed free of charge. In the
days after the Japanese occupied the capital the canned goods
which had been taken from the burning piers were about the

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only source of food in the city, and people bought them eagerly
despite the exorbitant prices. All our armed forces had been
withdrawn from the water front and the only representative
of our military was an old man in his late sixties, a veteran of
the American campaign in the Philippines, who guarded the
entrance to the docks with an ancient 30-30 carbine. He was
obviously confused by the flight of our armed forces from
the city.

At USAFFE headquarters I asked Major Diller for infor-
mation, but he still was not in a position to reveal the move-
ment of our troops that was in progress toward Bataan. For
information about the southern front he turned me over to
Colonel William Marquat, former Seattle newspaperman and
a member of MacArthur's G-3. (G-i is Personnel, G-2 Intel-
ligence, G-3 Operations, and G-4 Supply.)

**Where are the lines in the south. Colonel?" I asked.

''Can't tell you exactly, Clark."

"Is it all right to go down there, and how far can I go with-
out too great a risk of getting caught?'*

"It's too late to go tonight. Come back and see me before
you leave in the morning." He re-emphasized, "By all means,
don't start out without coming here first."

The Jacobys and Rus Brines came over to the Manila
Hotel for dinner, and we had another indecisive conference.
I told them what I had learned about Bataan and Mariveles.
I worked all night in the office burning the files of the stories
we had sent since the start of the war, and turned over my
room at the hotel to Ray and Mrs. Cronin.

At seven-thirty on December 31 I went to USAFFE and
found Colonel Marquat on the second floor, studying maps.
The big office was nearly deserted and there were evidences of
preparation for further departures: papers stacked in boxes,
packed suitcases sitting about, and the walls being stripped
bare. The colonel was conferring with a tall, good-looking
American captain. He introduced me and said:

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"The captain here is the man for you to see. He has been
fighting in the south/'

From the captain I learned more of the rear guard actions in
southern Luzon. He told me that he and a squad of about fif-
teen Filipino Scouts had skirmished with the Japs on the road
from Antimonan to Manila. He was wounded in the neck
and had led his men up a trail into the mountains, where
they camped for the night in a summerhouse. The Japs lo-
cated them during the night and attacked, throwing hand
grenades and making a lot of noise. The captain said: "Be-
lieve it or not their grenades are mostly noise makers and
don't spread shrapnel about, the way ours do. One of them hit
my helmet, actually, and exploded without even stunning me.
One of my sergeants was shot through the neck, the bullet
going clean through. He clapped a couple of bandages on
the wounds and kept on fighting. In the morning we attacked
with bayonets, got around the Japs, and came here." He said
a lot of our troops were still in the south but were taking
to the hills and would join our forces around Manila.

I asked Bill Marquat whether I should drive on down
south and see for myself.

"If you do," he said, **it will be the last thing you will see.
The Japs are at Pasay, which is only a few miles from Nichols
Field. They are definitely on the Batangas road and the road
to Tagaitay. Don't gol"

I fully realized then that we did not intend to make a fight
for Manila. The situation became entirely clear,

I drove back to the office as rapidly as possible and told
Cronin the story. He had some information of his own: the
wireless stations were to be dynamited by the Army at 1 1 : 30
A.M. and all communication with the outside world would
cease. It was then about 9: 15 A.M. We decided to try to inform
our New York office that Manila was about to be captured.
We wrote out a half-dozen urgent service messages, hoping
one or more of them would get tlirough the censor.

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I worded one, ''J^^'^ returned from southern front stop de-
parted 630 by automobile returned 730 stop stories coming
shortly if time." In New York they correctly interpreted the
main import of the message: the Japanese were knocking at
the gates of Manila and the city would fall shortly. However,
the AP credited me with having gone to the southern front.
Actually there was no front in the south,

I wrote another message, "Please include Manila staff in
any negotiations involving Hill Harris stop we will shortly
be same category/' Max Hill and Morris Harris, our bureau
chiefs respectively in Tokyo and Shanghai, were captured on
December 8 and interned. We knew efforts were being made
to obtain their release.

We also cabled New Year s greetings to all our colleagues,
and ''especially Lochner, Massock," two of the AP men in-
terned in Europe. We could not ascertain how many of the
messages were passed by the censors, but we knew if even one
got through it would be enough to advise our headquarters
of the situation.

Early in the afternoon we met again in the Jacobys' room
in the Bayview Hotel. There were Mel and Annalee, Ray
Cronin, Carl Mydans and his wife, Shelley Smith of Life
Magazine. None of us had seen Arch Royal Gunnison of
NANA, or Jack Percival, the Australian reporter, recently.

Mel had important news.

**I met a captain who is going out to Mariveles by freighter
tonight and will take us along if we decide to risk it,"

Nobody knew exactly what there was at Mariveles, except
what Carlos had told me about a number of people from
Manila already living in the hills behind the bay.

''I'm going," I said. "Anything to stay out of their hands
even if it s only for a few hours longer."

Carl said, *'It seems foolish to go, and since Shelley is with
me we will both stay here and be interned." Cronin and
Brines made similar decisions, feeling that they could not

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desert their families. Mel was undecided until Annalee made
up his mind for him. ''We're going, Mel."

We voted to have a farewell drink together and then dis-
covered there was nothing to drink. Both Annalee and Shelley
had poured their liquor down the bathroom sink as a result
of my telling them the day before that the Japs were inclined
to get out of control after taking a few drinks.

It was decided that the correspondents who were remaining
would all sleep that night in the Bayview Hotel with their
families in the hope that the Japanese would allow them to
remain there rather than intem them. We had read that
American correspondents in Tokyo and the Japanese news-
papermen in New York had been confined to their hotels in-
stead of being taken to prison camps. Frank Hewlett of the
UP telephoned that he was going to remain in Manila with
his wife, Virginia, who was a stenographer on the high com-
missioner's staff. Later Frank and Virginia decided that it was
his job to go to Bataan and hers to remain in Manila, and late
that night he drove out to Bataan.

I went back to the Manila Hotel barber shop and had just
gotten shaved and had one hand manicured, when Jacoby
telephoned. ''Get over here as fast as you can," he said. "We
may have to leave at any minute.''

I ran up to my room and grabbed a few pairs of socks, a
shirt, and threw them into a canvas bag. I looked longingly at
my golf clubs over in a corner and wondered if the Jap officer
who occupied the room would use them to play golf or if he
would send them back to Japan to be turned into scrap iron
to be made into bombs to kill Americans.

From its neat wooden box I took the vase which Lieutenant
Colonel Akiyama had presented me the night before I left
Shanghai, in appreciation for my having reported the "true
intentions" of the Japanese Army. I put it on the dresser in
front of a large picture of my wife. I took my portable type-
writer and the canvas bag and went over to the Bayview.

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In the dusk we sat in the Jacobys* room and tried to talk
the Mydans into coming to Mariveles with us. A small Japa-
nese biplane, an observation ship, flew over Nichols Field at
about five-thirty and then swooped up and down Dewey
Boulevard only a few feet above the treetops. Jacoby s friend,
the ship captain, telephoned to say that he would be back for
us at ten-thirty in the evening. The Jacobys packed one big
suitcase with canned goods and a few clothes and wrapped up
MeFs cameras in a package. Annalee was wearing a slack suit
and had one more in the suitcase. Most of her wardrobe, her
trousseau, had been on a ship which was en route to Manila
but was diverted to Singapore when war started.

I was looking out the side windows at the plane flying down
the boulevard when suddenly Mel shouted in an electrifying
voice, "Hey, lookl"

He was facing the rear window looking over the city. As he
shouted a great wall of flame hundreds of feet high and a half
mile long sprang into the darkening sky. There was explosion
after explosion, shaking the entire city,

I ran over to the window and quickly saw what it was.
''They're dynamiting the gasoline tanks at Pandacen, on the
other side of the Pasig River."

Because of its nearness it was even more spectacular than
the destruction of Cavite. Annalee, who used to write scena-
rios for Mickey Rooney, supplied the adjectives, ''Stupendous,
terrific, colossal, terrifying, magnificent, overwhelming,*' she
gasped. The burning gasoline threw up clouds of dense black
smoke, on which the flames flickered and danced and threw
their light for miles around. For many nights afterward, from
Corregidor, we could see the fires still burning.

For some reason the situation seemed to call for farewells.
I thought of my wife's cousins, the Fairchilds, and I telephoned
them. They sent their car down to the hotel and I took a
chance of missing connections with the freighter to go out to
their house. They were having a New Year's Eve buffet supper

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in their big home and they gave me some turkey and three cans
of tinned food to take along with me, and a small bottle of
New Jersey applejack,

I thought it best to tell them. "The Japs will probably be
here tomorrow/'

They were incredulous and shocked, since they had been
reading the communiques in the newspapers and thought the
fighting was going in our favor. I advised them to stay in their
homes and perhaps call in some of their neighbors, including
some Spaniards if possible, because the Japanese soldiers
would be less likely to get out of hand with a number of people
around. Spain and Japan were Axis allies, and the Spaniards
would probably receive preferential treatment.

We wished each other luck all around and shook hands.
As I didn't know what I was heading into I gave them a fare-
well message for my wife, to be delivered postwar if I failed
to come through.

Back at the Bayview, Mel and Annalee were beginning to
pace the floor and wonder if the captain would keep his prom-
ise to return. Promptly at ten-thirty the captain and another
captain drove up. Both their names for the purposes of this
account had better be Smith. Both were instrumental in pre-
venting a number of ships from falling into Japanese hands
and both were subsequently captured and imprisoned.

We found the dock area a confusion of flames and explo-
sions. Dark figures, overloaded with boxes and cans and any-
thing portable, were struggling away from the fires carrying
the stores that couldn't be taken away by the Army.

There were fires down at the end of the docks at Engineer
Island, where the Army's ship repair facilities and the oil
storage tanks had been dynamited. Burning embers showered
on our car as we drove along.

We scrambled onto a tug in the light of the fires and then
onto a small freighter about 150 feet long. The central deck
was low, with only the bridge and stern elevated. The captain

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rounded up his engineer who was on the pier watching the
fires and explosions, and at eleven-thirty we backed into the
bay and headed out westward.

We passed the projecting spars of the two ships which I had
seen the Jap bombers sink several days before, and went on
past the breakwater and the lighted hospital ship Mactan,
which was awaiting orders to get under way for Australia. The
Jacobys had tried to get on the ship but had withdrawn their
request when they learned that its neutral status would be
jeopardized if it carried unwounded civilian passengers. Later
the Japs bombed it anyway, off the coast of Australia.

From the bay Manila seemed a mass of flames. The great
gasoline fires at Pandacen threw into relief all the buildings
on Dewey Boulevard and along the water front. The Manila
Hotel was blazing with lights but they were dimmed by the
fires in the pier area.

"That's the most spectacular New Year's party that any-
body's ever seen," said Annalee.

'*A ninety-million-dollar send-off," Mel said.

''I don't want to bore you two with my hunches," I said,
*'but this one is so strong that you've got to hear it- 1 feel abso-
lutely certain that sometime within the next few months you
two honeymooners and I will sit around a table somewhere
south of the equator and drink a Tom Collins. It will be in a
hotel lobby and there will be palms around."

We were far out in the bay when the Jacobys' watches said
midnight, but we could see the time by the light of the fires
on shore. Cavite, off to our left, was still burning and there
were two fires in the water off Corregidor.

At midnight we passed the bottle of applejack to all hands
and wished ''Happy New Year" all around. The Jacobys
curled up on the hatch and went to sleep; while I leaned
against the rail, watching our bow cut through the dark
waters, and reviewed my impressions and recollections from
the outbreak of war until the withdrawal into Bataan.

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FOUR o'clock on New Year's morning I awakened,
cramped and shivering, on the hatch of the freighter that was
taking us from Manila to Mariveles. Our motors were stopped
and a cold wind was driving across Manila Bay. Captain Smith
I and Captain Smith II were seated on the hatch near me argu-
ing over the location of the mine fields off Corregidor. Captain
Smith I was nursing a bottle of Dewar's.

It was so light that at first I thought the sun was up. Then
I saw the illumination came from two ships which were burn-
ing a few hundred yards off our port beam. One small fire was
eating at the lumber piled on the deck of the Don Josi, which
the Captains Smith identified and told me was the second
biggest cargo ship in the world. The Don JosS burned for
twenty-one days after it was bombed and even then it wouldn't
sink. The other, smaller freighter was burning furiously.
Flames were eating down into the hull. We could make out
the outline of other undamaged ships around us. Behind them
loomed Corregidor, dark and forbidding.

Captain Smith II finally won the argument about the mine
fields. ''We can't approach Corregidor any closer before day-
light or they will fire on us," he said. ''We'd better start the
engines and head back into the bay and away from the mines.
The mine fields are between here and Mariveles and we can't
go through them until we get permission from Corregidor.
The S.S. Corregidor tried it and got blown to pieces."

They roused the engineer who had gone to sleep, and for
the next twenty minutes we headed away from Corregidor. But
the ship was empty and its draft was not more than six feet.
The wind promptly blew us back toward the island. We
chugged out, and drifted back, and chugged out again for the
rest of the night.

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I asked the Captains Smith, Where do we go from here?
After Mariveles, what?"

They said they had a small seagoing tug ancliored off Mari-
veles with sufficient fuel oil for a two-thousand-mile trip. If
the Army didn't need it or them, they would set out for the
Dutch East Indies or Australia, trusting to their knowledge
of the islands and the smallness of the boat to get through. I
woke up Jacoby and we quickly decided that if we weren't al-
lowed ashore at Corregidor or Mariveles we would take a
chance on the tugboat.

Except for the burning ships we seemed to have the bay
all to ourselves, but we found out later that its waters that
night and for the following day and night were filled with small
boats of all types making last-minute escapes from Manila,
Charles van Landingham of Los Angeles, whose wanderlust
had carried him all over the world and who had finally settled
down to a job in the Catholic Priests' Bank in Manila, confis-
cated a small boat from the Manila Yacht Club on New Year's
Day and sailed five American sailors safely to Bataan, taking
nearly forty-eight hours to cover the thirty miles against ad-
verse winds.

Other nocturnal sailors out that night were Captain Bill
Seater and Al Foyt, a former Hollywood promoter and now
with the U. S. Engineers. They were bringing out to Corregidor
a seventy-five-foot Philippine government customs launch with
a string of Japanese Diesel fishing sampans in tow.

In the blackness of Manila Bay on New Year's Eve, Seater
and Foyt heard a hail. A voice shouted, "Ship alioy. We're four
Army officers with a ten-cent compass and a bottle of Scotch.
Where the hell do we go from here?" Seater told them to fol-
low the fiery beacon of the burning ships off Corregidor.

Foyt, Seater, van Landingham, and others who made their
getaway from Manila even after our own departure, told us
that it had been the most unforgettable New Year's Eve in their
lives. Nobody knew what the next morning would bring and

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everyone was bewildered. A handful of people tried to dance
at the Manila Hotel but quickly gave it up. The realization
finally spread that the Japanese were about to enter the city.

Someone suggested the advisability of destroying all the
available liquor stocks in the city and the Americans tackled
the job with a will, glad to have something to do to keep their
minds off tomorrow. Some of the Army and Navy Club's liquor
supply was loaded on a barge and towed out to Corregidor
where the barge was sunk by Japanese bonlbs a few days later.

As dawn broke on New Year's Day the Captains Smith pi-
loted us in close to the north shore of Corregidor and anchored
just beside President Quezon's rakish gray yacht, the Casiana.
The captains supplied some coflEee, the Jacobys brought out a
can of corned beef, and we ate breakfast on the hatch. Then
we struggled with the rusty tackle of the lifeboat, finally got
it launched, and rowed to the nearest of two docks through a
welter of small boats and past numerous ships of all sizes which
I noticed were all anchored in a row stretching from close to
shore far out into the bay.

There were numerous soldiers on the docks, mostly Amer-
icans. As they helped us up on the dock the air raid siren cut
loose with its reverberating alarm and everybody started run-
ning. We scrambled ashore and followed, threading our un-
familiar way between one-story buildings of corrugated iron
and wood. We came to an air raid shelter built of concrete and
shaped roughly like a subway car. There was room for one
more, and Annalee Jacoby went inside. The rest of us raced
on, up an embankment and onto a trolley track which we fol-
lowed in the direction of the disappearing soldiers. The track
led into the middle of a hillside and into a long, arched, con-
crete tunnel.

In the next few weeks we came to know the tunnel well, for
it was not only the safest place during air raids but the nen e
center of the defenses on Bataan and Corregidor. It was open
at both ends, about a quarter of a mile long, and was jammed

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with Americans and Filipinos in blue denim, seated four and
five deep along each wall for the entire length. Boxes of food
and ammunition were piled to a height of six feet along the
walls.

The Military Police caught up with Jacoby and myself dur-
ing the first air alarm, and that day and the next we spent most
of our time between the tunnel and the guardhouse, a couple
of hundred yards down the trolley track. It seemed that every
time we reached the guardhouse to be questioned, the air
alarm would sound and everybody would sprint for the tunnel.
After the raid we would report dutifully back to the guard-
house.

The M.P.*s asked us, ''Where did you come from, what are
you doing here, and who are you?''

We produced our press credentials and Mel said, "We were
just passing by with two sea captains on our way to Mariveles
to catch a tug for the Dutch East Indies. We stopped to get
permission to go through the mine fields."

The M.P.'s were understandably skeptical. "Oh, yes, of
course," they said. "And where are the two captains?" In the
rush for shelter we had lost our captains. A trip to the guard-
house was in order. When the all-clear sounded we went back
and got Annalee from her shelter down by the water front and
reported to the guardhouse.

Our interrogator turned out to be Captain Benson of Pitts-
burgh and we quickly became friends. Benson was big and
handsome with high color and a dimpled chin— the type of
face they put on recruiting posters. Instead of locking us up,
he took care of us for the next few days, getting us something
to eat now and then, and blankets and mattresses, and once,
miraculously, a bottle of Four Roses. But the M.P. book had
no provision for two civilian men and a girl in a military area
in wartime and Benson didn't know exactly what our status
was.

A friend at court was urgently needed. He appeared in the

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person of Major Diller (subsequently twice promoted and here-
after Colonel Diller), aide to General MacArthur and public
relations officer and censor during the brief USAFFE interval
in Manila. Colonel Diller, when we encountered him in the
big tunnel during the second air raid alarm of the morning,
was astonished to see us, but friendly. He wasn't sure at first
whether we could remain on Corregidor but he would be glad
to give us transportation to Mariveles.

For some reason Mariveles suddenly became the place where
we least wanted to be. We guessed that once we were up in the
woods we would be completely out of touch with everything,
with no possibility of getting any stories out and with nothing
to eat but coconuts— if any grew there. Corregidor was fast be-
coming a known quantity. Everybody looked well fed and the
tunnel seemed a likely place to sit out air raids. During the next
few days, whenever an M.P. suddenly threatened us with depor-
tation to Mariveles, Colonel Diller would come to bat for us
with instructions to ''give them time to complete their ar-
rangements with the captains."

We never managed to make arrangements with the captains,
but the colonels intervention sufficed until General Mac-
Arthur was informed of our presence on the island and regu-
larized our status. MacArthur saw that we got uniforms and
had us assigned to the officers' mess, but not even the general
would give us permission to send stories.

The first two or three nights we slept on the platform of
the "Bottomside" station on Corregidor 's electric trolley line.
It was very cold, despite the blankets provided by Captain Ben-
son, but we never thought of complaining. Annalee took it all
with a smile and the soldiers did everything possible to make
us feel at home. One soldier I remember as typical. He was
Corporal Lash, a gangling, tow-headed, slow-spoken Regular
Army soldier from Texas.

He awakened us in our open-air trolley station boudoir the
morning of January 2. "Ma'am and gentlemen," he said. "Our

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cook passed by this morning and saw you sleeping here and
thought you might be hungry. He wishes you would come to
our mess for a bite to eat/'

The mess was just down the steps from the trolley station
in a wooden building next to the Bottomside cinema, and we
ate there for many days— when the air raids permitted the serv-
ing of food. At first there were three meals, with plenty of
canned fruit and jelly and butter. Then, suddenly, two meals
a day, with no fruit and fewer and fewer vegetables.

We quickly got acquainted with the Army officers on Cor-
regidor and when the daily bombing was finished they took us
to see the island, which the Army called Fort Mills.

From the air Corregidor looked like a tadpole with its thick
blunt head planted in the China Sea at the mouth of Manila
Bay and its tail curling off to a narrow point in the bay four
and a half miles away.

The largest flat area of the island was also the highest. It %vas
called Topside and from it sheer walls of rock dropped do^vn
650 feet to the China Sea in front and on the sides to Manila
Bay. The Topside barracks, which ran parallel to the long
axis of the island, were said to be tlie largest in the world. They
faced a half-mile square parade ground and athletic field,
around which were located the officers' homes, single houses
for the higher officers, and double or quadruple quarters for
the others. The homes were of white stucco with bougainvillaea
and hydrangea growing in the gardens.

From their porches there was an incomparable view of the
sunsets over the China Sea and of the rough beauty of Bataan.
There was a large bamboo cinema, an officers' club, and a big,
three-story hospital with the Red Cross painted on its roof.
There were machine shops, protected by five feet of reinforced
concrete; quartermaster and storage buildings; and the tanks
for water which was drawn from wells dug down into the solid
rock of the island.

The big guns were there, the 12-inch rifles and the mortars

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which dominated both the north and south channels into
Manila Bay, the Boca Chica and Boca Grande passages. The
guns were hidden underground and poked their noses out only
to fire.

From Topside you could see the water front of Manila, thirty
miles away, and also the four other islands stretching in a chain
across the southern entrance to the bay. The nearest and largest
was Fort Hughes, and beyond it Fort Drum, chiseled out of
solid rock in the shape of a battleship, with a battleship mast
of rock, and its guns and quarters hidden below deck; then
Fort Frank on tiny Caballo Island over near the Cavite shore;
and one other small unfortified island called Carabao.

Roads wound down the hills from Topside to the central
area, called Middleside, where there were more barracks and
shops and quarters for the noncommissioned officers; and a
school for the children of Filipino soldiers and another school
for the American children. Anti-aircraft guns were spotted
there, some 75*s.

Then the island dropped off steeply to Bottomside where
the ground was level and only a few feet above the surfcice of
the bay. The cove on the northern side was known as the Army
Dock Area. There were two concrete piers and behind them
mechanical and electrical shops and the bakery. Tucked in a
fold in the hills leading up to Middleside were the big cold-
storage plant and the shops of the U. S. Engineers.

The southern shore of Bottomside was the Navy Area, with
a single L-shaped concrete pier. The beach was low and sandy,
and it was guarded by barbed wire and pillboxes manned by

S. Marines. The trolley line, for both freight and passengers,
ran all the way from Bottomside to Topside— when it ran. After
the bombing of January i and 2 the trolley was no longer
usable.

From Bottomside going east toward the tail of the island,
rose a mighty hill of rock, roughly cone-shaped, from the
water's edge to a height of nearly six hundred feet. This was

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Malinta Hill and its interior was a network of tunnels. The
largest was Malinta tunnel, where we found shelter during the
air raids. The main road the length of the island ran through
the tunnel and the trolley line extended as far as its eastern-
most entrance.

From the principal tunnel a dozen laterals branched off on
each side. Walking through the tunnel from the Bottomside
entrance you came first to the Quartermaster's lateral, then a
store which sold cigarettes and chewing gum as long as they
lasted, then the Quartermaster s department where supplies
were issued, and the Signal Corps offices and so on.

On the left were the ordnance shops, laterals for the storage
of food and munitions, then the anti-aircraft listening post
headquarters, the USAFFE headquarters, the hospital tunnel,
and then a lateral used as an office and dormitory. Laterals run-
ning off from the hospital tunnel, which also had an entrance
on the northern side of Malinta Hill, contained the various
wards— medical, surgical, amputations, dental— and dormito-
ries for the nurses and other women on Corregidor.

In one lateral off the hospital tunnel Quezon and Sayre and
the women members of their parties ate together with the doc-
tors and nurses. In the hospital section the walls were white-
washed and clean and the civilians assigned there slept
comfortably in hospital beds or double-decker iron cots. Except
during air raids there was enough light and air in the tunnels,
perhaps more light than fresh air.

The main Quartermaster's lateral of Malinta tunnel led all
the way through the hill to connect with the Navy tunnel, near
the southem edge of Corregidor. Here Admiral Rockwell
moved the staff of the i6th Naval District after Cavite was evac-
uated. The Navy tunnel contained radio equipment in an air-
conditioned lateral, and shops, desks, beds, a combination mess
and reading room. Vicious-looking torpedoes were stored in
the rear of the tunnel near an exit which led to the opposite
side of Malinta Hill. Between the Bottomside entrance to

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Malinta tunnel and the Navy tunnel were two other shafts
driven straight into the hillside, containing bunks for Navy
personnel and civilian workers.

Rows of desks lined each side of the USAFFE tunnel, with
MacArthur's at the extreme right-hand side in the rear. Gen-
eral Richard K. Sutherland, chief of MacArthur's staflE, pored
over papers at a desk in front of the general's. In front of them
were the desks of officers of G-3 and G-2, the air liaison officers,
the press relations department. Just inside the door sat fatherly
Brigadier General Carl Seals, the USAFFE adjutant general.
Some distance behind MacArthur's desk were two rows of
double-decked beds for his USAFFE staflE.

MacArthur stayed in the tunnel as little as possible. He and
his family lived about a half mile away toward the inside tip
of the island, on a grassy hillside. At times President Quezon
occupied the house up the hill from MacArthur, and for a
while Jacoby and myself were permitted to stay in the house
assigned to Sayre, only fifty feet down the hill from Mac-
Arthur s.

A narrow road wound steeply up to the top of Malinta Hill,
where there were lookout positions and an anti-aircraft battery
consisting of one *'pom-pom" type gun which had been taken
oflf the U.S.S. Houston before the war. From the lookout posi-
tions atop Malinta Hill you could get a bird's-eye view of most
of Corregidor.

Going through Malinta tunnel and on toward the tip of the
island the main road ran level and about three hundred feet
above the surface of Manila Bay. The hills dropped sharply
away from the road to a large cove on the south shore of Cor-
regidor, where there was an unused hangar for naval flying
boats. Toward that end of the island there was a cluster of
homes and barracks, the naval radio in still another small tun-
nel, and "Kindley Field," a narrow short runway where slow
airplanes could land.

Batteries of guns, mostly 75-mm. and some 37-mm. field

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pieces, guarded the approaches to the island from the rear and
sides. Pillboxes overlooked the few beaches which offered
likely landing places. Everything possible was underground
and protected.

Everybody called Corregidor the "Rock," and the adjective
that seemed to fit it best was ''rugged." Corregidor was indeed
a mighty fortress. Doubtless it would have been impregnable
—if the airplane had never been invented.

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But airplanes had been invented, and during Janu-
ary they were over Corregidor for two or three hours almost
every day. There was something hideously obscene about those
tiny silver planes buzzing around high up against the blue
cloudless sky. They were so small, at above 20,000 feet, that
they looked as if you could put them in a matchbox.

In the intervals when the noise of the last load of bombs
had died away, and the planes were out of range of the anti-
aircraft and circling for their next run, you could hear the
motors plainly. The noise of the motors was deadly and vicious.
You thought of being tied down to slimy tree roots in a muddy
jungle, and having a rattlesnake weave his ugly head two inches
from your throat, waiting and picking his place to strike. You
thought of all the evil nightmares you had ever had.

Everybody knew when the planes were coming.

First, about seven-thirty in the morning, when the sun was
hidden behind the clouds over the mountains in back of
Manila, would come the observation plane. It was either
*Thotograph Joe" in his high-wing monoplane, or the twin-
engined, twin-tailed Lockheed monoplane that used to fly right
over the island. Joe would circle over the channel between
Corregidor and Bataan and the .30- and .50-caliber machine
guns would shoot golden tracers all around him. The g-inch
guns had orders not to open up because Joe had a camera and
would photograph their flashes and get their location.

Joe would circle deliberately and then he would release a
silver balloon and watch the wind carry it up in the sky. That
was to test the wind currents. It filled us with bitter anger to
see the deliberate way he got the stage set for the daily murder.

Joe would putt-putt away, flying straight over the middle of
Bataan and up to Clark Field, only thirty miles away.

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Then Captain Suzuki would call his pilots together out on
Clark Field while mechanics loaded the bombs in the silver-
winged planes and checked the motors. Suzuki would show
the pilots the photographs Joe had taken and give them the
weather data and point out their objectives.

At about eleven-thirty the planes would take off and start
circling to gain altitude because they had only a short distance
to cover and a long way to climb. **Fine weather. Good hunt-
ing/' Suzuki-san would tell his pilots.

Then the siren would sound on Corregidor and the red
lights flash on in Malinta tunnel and the crews would run to
their posts on the 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and the .50-caliber
machine guns, and everybody else would get under cover.

Then the planes would come over, twenty-seven of them or
maybe fifty-four. They would crisscross Corregidor without
dropping, taking their time, deliberately getting their targets
lined up. The anti-aircraft would open up and burst in them
and around them, but if one was shot out they would reform
in their V formation and keep coming.

Having picked their targets out they would come back fly-
ing straight in from over the channels, sometimes from the
north and sometimes from the south.

Then would come the noise of the bombs falling. The bombs
didn't screech or whistle or whine. They sounded like a pile
of planks being whirled around in the air by a terrific wind
and driven straight down to the ground. The bombs took
thirty years to hit. While they were falling they changed the
dimensions of the world. The noise stripped the eagles from
the colonel's shoulders and left him a little boy, naked and
afraid. It drove all the intelligence from the nurse's eyes and
left them vacant and staring. It wrapped a steel tourniquet of
fear around your head, until your skull felt like bursting. It
made you realize why man found he needed a God.

The roar of the explosions was a relief from the noise of
the falling bombs. You felt the concussion driving against your

Goog[<

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ears and heard the clatter of collapsing buildings and saw the
dust billowing high in the air.

Then would come the fires, and the heroism. Men and
women dashing out and picking up the wounded while the
bombs were still falling. They would carry the dead and the
wounded to the hospital tunnel. You would hear the cars long
before they reached the tunnel. The urgency of their horns,
blowing all the way down the hill from Topside and then up
the slope from Bottomside, told you they were bringing dead
and those about to die and those who would be better off dead.
The M.P.'s would make the cars slow down as they drove into
the big tunnel and they would stop at the hospital tunnel and
blood would be dripping down from the cars or the trucks.
Then the stretcher bearers would gently lift out the bloody
remnants of what had been an American soldier or a Filipino
worker a few minutes before. They would lift out the hand-
some captain whose legs were bloody stumps. They would lift
out carefully the 18-year-old American boy who would never
again remember his name, or his mother s name, or anything
else, but would just look at you blankly when you spoke to him.

When the bombers had finally done their day's murder and
gone away there would come the horror, when you went to
see the damage they had done. The horror would come when
you helped to dig out the bodies of thirty-five young Americans
from the ^'bomb-proof' that had received a direct hit. The
bomb explosion didn't kill them, but it blew their mouths and
noses and lungs full of dirt and suffocated them.

Then would come the communiqu^: ''54 enemy bombers
raided Corregidor for three hours today. There was no mili-
tary damage."

Of course, the communiques had to be worded that way. You
couldn't tell the enemy he was hurting you. The wonder was
that the bombs didn't do more damage than they did.

The first big raid on Corregidor, on December 29, was one
of the worst. The bombs blasted the big barracks on Topside;

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they tore into the Red Cross painted on the hospital roof, they
wrecked the officers' quarters and the cinema, and they knocked
out the anti-aircraft control post at Topside. They almost
killed MacArthur who was standing in front of his house and
refused to be driven to shelter even when the bombs hit near
him, and the planes came low and close.

The planes came back on New Year's Day and for the next
nine days thereafter. General MacArthur estimated that, con-
sidering its size, a greater concentration of bombs dropped on
Corregidor than on any other area on earth.

The bombs wrecked the trolley lines and burned out most
of the Bottomside shops; they tore down a water tank and re-
peatedly punctured the water mains, creating a serious prob-
lem in sanitation; they burned up fuel supplies; they sank
President Quezon's yacht, the ship on which we had escaped
from Manila, a half-dozen other ships anchored in a straight
line out in the bay, and nearly all the small boats used for com-
munication with Bataan. They bounced oflE the roof of the
power plant and the cold-storage plant leaving both of them
in operation.

When the bombers went away for a while, after the 29th,
Corregidor shook itself and found amazingly that it was not
too badly wounded. Almost everything above ground had been
hit but the damage was quickly patched up, as far as possible,
and auxiliary shops were built underground and supplies
moved into the tunnels. The trolley line was beyond repair
but there were plenty of trucks and gasoline. Not much food
had been lost. Only one gun was put out of action and that was
quickly repaired. Casualties were relatively low.

The planes came back intermittently until about January
20. Then they moved on south to the airfield which had been
prepared on the Island of Jolo, in the southern Philippines,
and from which the bombers operated against Borneo and the
Dutch East Indies.

Corregidor had had a foretaste of what was to come later.

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It was obvious to everybody on the Rock that with enough
bombs and enough bombers the island could eventually be
pounded into submission. Even the underground areas could
not escape. The Japanese evidently reached the same con-
clusion, for when they next came back in force, from the first
of April onward, they came with scores of dive bombers and
heavy bombers and attack planes. They blasted the barbed
wire guarding Corregidor s beaches, they knocked out the anti-
aircraft guns and the big coast defense rifles, they killed our
Marines in the trenches along the beaches. Finally, after a
month of pounding, they captured Corregidor.

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When the planes weren't overhead life on Corregidor was
not too unpleasant. For the first few days there were still some
of the minor pleasures of peacetime life in the big army gar-
rison—a little ice cream or a bottle of Coca-Cola; but they soon
became major luxuries and then disappeared altogether.

I met a lot of old friends from Shanghai in the Fourth Ma-
rines, who were assigned to beach defenses of Corregidor after
having been bombed out of Olangapo. Colonel Samuel
Howard, the Marine commander, set up headquarters in the
Navy tunnel. Lieutenant Colonel **Duke" Hamilton got me
a pair of marine shoes to replace the China-made oxfords
which had stood up during the hike from Baguio but were
now decidedly down at heel. Corporal ''Gabby*' Kash of Los
Angeles gave the Jacobys and myself a half-dozen cans of sal-
mon and a big can of tomato juice.

I asked Gabby, who had been a prot^g^ of radio announcer
Carroll Alcott in Shanghai, how he accounted for the fine mo-
rale of the Marines and why they seemed to be less bothered
by the bombing than the rest of the forces.

"Well," he said, "it's mostly because we have to live up to
our traditions and reputation. Everybody expects us to be good
—just a little bit better than anybody else— and so we just have
to be good."

Sergeant White, star shortstop and rugby player of the
Fourth Marines during their Shanghai days, lost a leg early in
the Battle of Corregidor, but he was one of the most cheerful
men on the Rock. I used to chat with him for a few minutes
every day while he was in bed. Within ten days he was getting
around easily on crutches.

I asked him if he wasn't in pain.

"I must have been," he said, "because they tell me I was

172

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delirious and pretty hard to get along with for a week. But I
don't remember it at all. I'm all set now. They'll give me an
artificial leg as good as new. Fll get preference for a civil service
job that'll pay me one hundred and thirty dollars a month. In
a couple of weeks our help will be here and we'll chase the Japs
out of the islands and they'll take me to Australia in a hospital
ship and then send me home.*'

It was a little cold sleeping in the trolley station, so Jacoby
and I looked around for a place to live. Cabot Colville, former
second secretary of the American Embassy in Tokyo and now
a member of Sayre's staff, told us we could sleep on cots on the
porch in the house assigned to Sayre, next door to General Mac-
Arthur's. Sayre, his wife, and her 1 2-yearold son were sleeping
in the hospital tunnel. Annalee was also assigned a bed in the
tunnel, over her strenuous objections. At Sayre's house we
could get an occasional shower, when the bombs hadn't dis-
rupted the water supply, and it also was high enough above the
bay level to provide a good lookout post.

At night we could sit on the grass outside and watch oui
guns firing in Bataan. In the morning we would see our anti-
aircraft firing on the Japanese dive bombers which made almost
daily raids on our improvised airfields at Cabcaben, on the
southeastern tip of the peninsula. The house was handy to our
first mess, which was driven out of Bottomside by the bomb-
ings and set up on a slope to the east of Malinta tunnel. We
seldom made it for breakfast but the cooks would save us a
cup of coffee. Later, after a couple of weeks, General Mac-
Arthur transferred us to the officers' mess which was just out-
side the eastern entrance to the tunnel.

There we ate more frequently but in lesser quantities than
at the soldiers' mess. The officers were served a cup of coffee
and a piece of toast and sometimes a piece of bacon for break-
fast; a cup of soup and a half sandwich at lunch; and for dinner
some kind of salmon, canned vegetable, and dessert of rice
pudding or something similar. The Chinese chef, Ah Fu, was

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I

an artist— but you could only do so many things with salmon
and rice.

Social life in the evenings centered around the officers' mess
and the mess for convalescent patients and hospital attendants
outside the northern entrance to the hospital tunnel. It was
cool, and the stars shone brightly above the bay, and we lis-
tened to San Francisco on the radio and to Tokyo, and to the
puppet station in Manila* Later, USAFFE set up its own ''Voice
of Freedom" radio in Malinta tunnel with news broadcasts
three times daily to the troops.

There was considerable grumbling the night Bing Crosby
broadcast to Bataan, because the Japs jammed the music and
dialogue— all except the cheese ads. There had been one of the
worst bombings that day and nobody had had much more
than a piece of bread and a cup of coffee. Our reaction was,
'Tor Gods sake, Americans, stop making cheese and make
bullets and airplanes, because we need them fast/'

Living next to General MacArthur had its disadvantages. If
his phone rang in the night it would awaken us and we would
know that some serious threat had developed in Bataan. In the
mornings the general would walk around his lawn and circle
our house with his long, purposeful strides. He never paid any
attention to air raid alarms until the planes were actually over-
head. To save face, we would have to ignore the warning too
and stifle our inclination to dash for the safety of the tunnel.
Many mornings we would walk along with him and get the
latest news.

Getting news and getting it out was our first concern after
our status on Corregidor became established, and for Jacoby
and myself it was the toughest battle of the war. As early as the
first day we told Colonel Diller, "We want to report this story."

Diller said, "Go ahead and write it." We wrote and wrote
and wrote. We wrote of the last night in Manila, the fires and
the destruction, we wrote about the bombing of Corregidor.
But the censors wouldn't let the stories through. I spent a day

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with Lieutenant Jennings and some other Marine friends in
a concrete trench during a heavy bombing raid and had one
eardrum injured and nearly got killed— to get a story. I wrote
about how it felt to be nearly killed by bombs, and Diller still
said no. There were no facilities for press transmission.

There seemed to be no hope. We decided that unless we
could do our jobs it was up to us to move on and stop eating
the food needed for someone who was doing a job. So we started
investigating the possibilities of getting out by boat. In that
way we became intimately acquainted with the water transport
setup which was one of the most interesting and important
phases of the defense of Bataan.

After most of our ships had been sunk by the bombings
early in January only a few small boats remained for trans-
portation between Corregidor and Bataan. There were four
or five tugboats, which were used to pull barges from Cor-
regidor to Mariveles or Cabcaben and back with loads of fuel
and food and ammunition. Both our friends, the Captains
Smith, and their tug had been needed by the Army.

All that remained of President Quezon's yacht, except for
the masts still sticking out of the water off the North Dock,
was a well-fitted launch. It was used to ferry passengers to
Bataan. The Signal Corps operated one small launch, built
on whaleboat lines, which ran to Cabcaben just before sunrise
and again just after sunset, timing its schedule to avoid the
bombings. With the wind blowing, Manila Bay became sur-
prisingly rough, and riding in the Signal Corps launch under
these conditions was like riding a roller coaster.

The Philippine Government customs launch No. 4, which
Bill Seater and A) Foyt had brought out from Manila on New
Year's Eve, was taken over by the Army Engineers. It soon be-
came known as the *Tirate Boat." Its crew, headed by Seater,
included several Norwegian seamen whose ships had been
sunk by Jap bombs in Manila Bay. There were also several
White Russians, one of them an expert machine gunner, and

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a Filipino sailor or two, Seater and his crew were commended
for their heroic work during the final days of Bataan when
they made a number of trips under heavy shellfire to rescue
American nurses and troops and convey them safely to Cor-
regidor.

During the early days on Corregidor the Engineers, with
their hands in everything and dozens of difficult jobs to do
with improvised materials, refused to be bound by Army red
tape. When the Engineers heard that some metal or some wire,
or something else they needed for vital construction, could be
found at such and such a place in Bataan, they would simply
send over their launch and bring back the materials. I went
on many a night raiding party to Bataan in the Pirate Boat.
Some days we would go over and anchor in shallow water off
the tip of Bataan and spend the afternoon swimming and wash-
ing ourselves and our clothes.

The Engineers knew how to fight a war in the most com-
fortable possible way. They worked hard and efficiently and
when their work was finished they settled back and enjoyed
themselves. Their tunnel, just across from the power plant in
the Bottomside section, was well lighted and well furnished.
For a while they even had cocktail parties. The wherewithal
for them was obtained the night of January i , when the wine
supply was brought ashore from President Quezon's yacht.
An officer of the Engineers stood on the dock in the darkness
and as the soldiers came ashore with cases on their shoulders
he directed them, *'One here and one there.*' ''Here" was a
truck sent to the dock by the president; ''there" was an en-
gineer truck.

The boats which were most interesting to the soldiers on Cor-
regidor were not even floating. They were two barges, one
loaded with whisky from the Manila Army and Navy Club and
the other with dried prunes and raisins. The barges were sunk
in shallow water off the North Dock by Japanese bombs. Some
soldiers spent hours diving in the oil-coated water, cutting their

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hands on glass and getting smeared with Diesel fuel from head
to foot, to bring up a single bottle. They would be so thirsty
from their exertions that they would drink it right there before
coming ashore.

Undamaged by the bombs were three inter-island ships: the
large and modern Legaspi and two smaller Diesel-engined ves-
sels. With these ships MacArthur organized a blockade-run-
ning system. During late January and February the ships
slipped out of Manila Bay at night and ran down to Cebu,
where they loaded rice and other provisions which were
brought back to the Army in Bataan. On their outward trips
the ships carried American and Filipino aviators hoping to
reach Australia and Navy men who had no warships to fight in.

The remnants of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet could have been
counted on two hands. The biggest was the sub tender Canopus
which was anchored off Mariveles and used as a repair vessel.
There were the three Yangtze River gunboats: the Oahu,
Luzon, and Mindanao, and three or four auxiliary mine sweep-
ers, mine layers, and tugs. There were one or two ships' boats
and a number of private fishing yachts which had been brought
out from Manila. And there were Lieutenant John Bulkley's
PT boats.

Shortly after we arrived on Corregidor the Engineers' launch
broke one of her twin-propeller shafts, making her useless for
towing. Someone suggested trying to get through to Australia
on the one remaining engine, but the Engineers repaired the
boat quickly and put it back in service.

Then we located what seemed to be the ideal getaway boat,
a 65-foot schooner belonging to an executive of Jan Marsman's
companies. The owner, who was on board with a crew of two
Manila businessmen, was anxious to get out. We began work-
ing in earnest. Our friends among the Engineers gave us some
drums of Diesel oil for the auxiliary engine. We made a special
trip to Bataan to get a compass off the Yusang. We pored ovei
charts of the islands, planning various routes to the south

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through the Japanese blockade. We pestered MacArthur's staff
for information as to which islands the Japanese had seized and
which were unoccupied.

While we were hard at work on the boat we continued to
write stories in the hope that one would get through. Finally,
on January 9, Colonel Diller agreed to transmit one short story
for me. It was about the abortive tank attack in southeastern
Luzon on Christmas Day and it came from Sergeant Robert
Mitchell, who had made his way to Corregidor and was under-
going treatment for his wounds. He was convalescent but still
weak, and his face was pale beneath his reddish hair. He was
anxious to get back to the tanks and he finally did late in Feb-
ruary, when he was permitted to return to active service in
Bataan.

The day after I sent through a short account of Mitchell's
experiences the censorship clamped down again. There was
never any explanation, but I think the situation in Bataan was
then so uncertain— with the first big Japanese push in progress
—that nobody had much time to bother about our stories.

Mel and I tackled the problem from a new angle. We began
haunting the Navy tunnel, calling on Admiral Rockwell and
his staff and doing a quiet job of salesmanship. Finally we got
Commander Mike Cheek, the Intelligence officer, on our side,
and Admiral Rockwell agreed to assist us.

"Since we haven't many ships/' he said, ''our wireless is not
too busy. We can transmit some stories for you." He agreed
that the first story could be one thousand words long, and
thereafter each correspondent would be permitted five hun-
dred words daily. In addition to Mel and Annalee and myself
there were three correspondents in Bataan— Frank Hewlett of
the UP, Nat Floyd of the New York Times, and a man from
the Reuters (British) news agency.

The transmission problem had been solved but there was
still the necessity of writing stories that would meet Diller's
approval. He turned thumbs down on most of our efforts. I had

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noticed that the daily USAFFE News Bulletin, compiled by
Major Romulo and Captain Kenneth Saner from intercepted
radio broadcasts, had been headlining the deeds of what they
called the ''world's champion anti-aircraft battery/* It was Bat-
tery G of the 6oth Coast Artillery. Colonel Diller thought it
would be all right if I visited them in Bataan and wrote about
them, I got the story and it went through.

Meantime, our yacht was ready to sail and the owner came
to tell us.

We decided that, inasmuch as we could now do our jobs,
we would be earning our keep, so we let the yacht go without
us. We learned later that it got through safely to one of the
islands in the southern Philippines. There the crew took to
the hills to sit out the rest of the war.

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When I finally left Corregidor I destroyed my notes and
diaries on orders of General MacArthur. The Jacobys and I
were going to attempt to run through the Japanese blockade
and we didn't want any written information to fall into enemy
hands if we were killed or captured.

However, on arriving in Australia, I found in my wallet a
few torn pages of the diary I kept on Corregidor and Bataan.
One page has part of an entry from January 6. It says: *'Casiana
(President Quezon's yacht) sunk today by bombs through sheer
neglect. Quezon bought it from E. L. Doheny who bought it
from Prince of Monaco. Quezon had it about four years, got it
for song. Its U. S. and Filipino flags flying from masts which
still project above water."

The "sheer neglect" of which I accuse some undesignated
person or persons evidently reflected Quezon's own indigna-
tion at losing his yacht. He felt, and I recall that I did, that
the yacht and other ships should not have been left anchored
in a straight line off Corregidor's North Dock— an easy target
for the bombers— but should have been scattered around the
harbor. Since the bombing at Clark Field where our planes
were all lined up in neat rows, and in Manila Bay, where the
ships were nicely lined up for the bombers, I have an obsession
against seeing things in straight lines, especially ships and air-
planes.

On the same day I wrote in my diary:
Got to tunnel before air alarm and breakfasted at Bottom-
side. Some sort of meat with cream sauce. Saw Major Hughes
of Army Transport who just got back from Cabcaben (at south-
eastern end of Bataan) where Japanese bombed for seven hours
yesterday trying to knock out our two runways. Hughes prom-
ised to look out for boat for us and tip us if anything going out.

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Been real friend and real hard worker, handling transport to
and from Corregidor. Is Brooklyn boy like Col. Pierce of 26th
Cavalry.

I learned USAFFE reorganizing forces in Bataan. Some di-
visions at one third infantry strength.

USAFFE now trying to shape up front line with trained
units. Hard job since so few Scouts or experienced troops.

Body washed up on Corregidor taken to hospital. Possibly
Jap airman or Filipino officer, probably Jap, judging by the
gold teeth.

I was in Navy tunnel during bombing but for some reason
it didn't seem as safe as Malinta tunnel so I ducked out and ran
over there. Foolish.

I'm on Navy black list according to Commander Mike Cheek,
Intelligence officer. Said the Navy thought I was a ^'Bolshevik"
for my stories about Manila. Nevertheless they agreed to send
stuff for Mel (Jacoby) and myself starting tomorrow.

Turned in first colorless summary to Diller for censorship
hoping it will pass so at least folks back home know Fm living.

Bombs for about three hours. Army's remaining water front
equipment, launches, fire barge, etc., blitzed. One direct hit
on Middleside battery killed 35. Some others dug out okay
but badly shaken. I'd rather get a direct hit than be buried
that way.

Got some stores, pineapple juice, etc. Also bottle beer. Ser-
geant Rutherford presented pack of Luckies.

Navy radio on Monkey Point also bombed.

Good chow. Mutton, Catsup, beans, peas, bread, rice pud-
ding, coffee.

My diary for January 7-8 reads:
Only small raids both days. Japanese apparently concen-
trating Baatan [at the time I didn't even know how to spell
Bataan] ground forces. Met Dean Schedler of Quartermaster
Corps, a civilian who was friend of Ray Cronin our bureau

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chief in Manila. Also met Al Foyt, tall, big-eared, mustached
Hollywood adventurer type, civilian employe of Engineers,
Foyt calls himself **the guy with the ears," and says, **My
mother was frightened by a Yellow Taxi with the doors open/'

Schedler and Foyt took me to Army Engineer tunnel in
devastated North Dock section. Foyt, who came here last year
**to get a ringside seat at the war" was blown into sewer in
January 6 bombing which wrecked the Bottomside shops con-
taining machinery, tools, garage equipment, etc. There were
two direct hits on Engineer tunnel whicli bounced Engineers
around but didn't hurt them as they have six feet of concrete
and about thirty feet of rock over their heads.

Engineers hard-boiled bunch, cheerful because they are
active, doing everything from repairing water pipes, putting
out fires, to digging out bodies from bomb ruins. Lt. Col. Lloyd
Milenz in command. They tough and efficient. Even have a
gorgeous secretary, Mrs. Helen Grady, wife of an artillery cap
tain. Her freshly pressed blue slacks, clean white shoes, seemed
an amazing touch amid so much death and fire and devastation.

Engineers just had showers, due to bomb hit bursting open
water pipe outside their tunnel. Served me White Label
whisky with ice, and slices Edam cheese.

Night January 6 went with Engineers on 65-foot, twin
Diesel-engine customs launch to Cabcaben, Bataan. Had brawl
on dock when somebody hollered son of a peech at our boat for
flashing light on dock so we could see to tie up. Engineers drew
.45 s and so did those on dock and there %vas some slugging and
nearly shooting. Just tense nerves.

Rode 15 miles into hills to field headquarters of Engineers.
Three of us dangled feet from tailboard of station wagon. Dark
but able see big trees, heavy vines, thickest vegetation.

Visited Engineer chief , Colonel Stickney, waking him about
midnight and remaining until 3 A.M. He comfortable in tent
with bed and mosquito netting. Wearing violently striped
pajamas. They talked shop while I sat on tent step. After while

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colonel exclaimed, *'Gad, gentlemen, I'm forgetting my hos-
pitality." Pulled out a bottle of Martell Brandy and passed it
around twice.

Colonel told us story of a major who was cut off by Japs
during our retreat into Bataan. Lay for hours in small bamboo
clump and watched helplessly while Japs ravished women of
near-by village. Japs poked bayonets into bamboo but failed
to see major who later escaped and rejoined us in Bataan.

Also told us that retreat was somewhat disorderly. Of bat-
tery of six 8-inch guns, only two reached Bataan. Two were left
on railway siding where Japs got them. Two others put out
action. Many other stories of grousing, inefficiency.

Colonel said our outlook none too good. Only two regiments
of nervous constabulary guarding entire west coast of Bataan.
Also said our green troops still running. I argued with him
that we had let the Filipinos down badly, failing to provide
them proper weapons, or air support, or any direct leadership
for small Filipino units. He agreed.

January 7.

Good dinner in officers' mess, after which visited wrecked
Topside area from where able see Manila buildings, just dis-
tinguishable in distance. Saw Battery WAY, formerly our anti-
aircraft control post on Corregidor, which knocked out by
accurate Jap bombing.

Major McNair (of Red Bank, N. J.) of anti-aircraft com-
mand, which now located in Malinta tunnel, said Jap bombing
over-all is not so hot. All "stick stuff" without precision bomb-
ing at single targets. Japs take bearings on high point of Cor-
regidor always fly at 21,000 to 25,000 feet and from same
direction. Their routine makes work easier for our AA which
is 90 per cent information— plotting course, speed, direction
winds, etc. One battery has best record because it is located
where can shoot at Japs before bombs start falling. That's easier
on nerves than shooting after bombs already in air. This bat-

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tery got several direct hits on bombers, causing mid-air ex-
plosions.

Jap 97 bomber is slick plane, twin-engined medium bomber.
Also have used some 4-engine bombers. Their low-level straf-
ing by fighters is directed at specific targets, showing they had
information about what to attack on Corregidor. It has been
effective.

Our P-40*s in Bataan now confined solely to observation.
Fly in pairs, one observing and other watching for hostile air-
craft. They shooting down one Jap plane daily.

Talked with three Air Corps mechanics in morning.
Stranded here being part of dive bomber squadron which ar-
rived just before war but whose planes never got here. They
casually discussed merits of new American planes, A-?o-A, B-17,
B-24, B-25, B-26, et cetera, apparently wonderful ships which
had been sent to Europe. Heartbreaking to hear about them.

There was only one brief entry for January 8: No breakfast.
Spent most of day riding around harbor looking for possible
boat for trip south provided censorship doesn't open up. One
prop shaft broken on Engineers' boat. We went aboard inter-
island steamer Don Esteban, one of few boats not sunk by Japs.
Drunken Scotch engineer in charge, looked like Glencannon,
with purple shorts, green undershirt. Wavered in breeze as
American Army lieutenant administered some sort of oath
whereby he pledged loyalty to American Army. Some trouble
on boat between Engineers and Army Water Transport men.
Typical of inter-departmental jealousy, rivalry. Believe argu-
ment was over who should have jurisdiction over Don Esteban.

Jan. 9 & 10.

Worked on boat proposition. Customs launch taken to
Mariveles for repairs to broken propeller shaft but seems defi-
nitely out for our purposes. Army needs it. Jap fishing sampan
Suntay II which seized in Manila is available. Captain Smith

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II, who brought us out from Manila, will go if he can be con-
vinced there is a 50-50 chance of getting through. He is well
acquainted with islands and would be ideal skipper. However,
USAFFE now says chances getting through not so good as
Japs patrolling Zamboanga-Jolo-Bomeo waters through which
would have to run to reach Java. Might be able to get to some
island in P.I. from where could work down to Australia.

25 bombers, 9 fighters attacked Mariveles today. Fighters
strafed and blew hell out of six old Navy seaplanes which were
supposedly hidden from view along beach. Some kind friend
no doubt told them where they were.

Asked Major McNair, who other officers say is one of most
popular and best young officers on Corregidor, why our planes
were caught on ground at Clark Field. He answered, * 'Policy.
Both national and local.'* That cost us most of our Air Force
and may cost us Luzon.

Lt. Col. Reginald Vance, who ffies ancient P.I. army biplane
to Bataan every morning and evening, has head in bandage.
Also Major Wilkinson of British Army who was riding with
them. They made crash landing on our small Corregidor air-
field and their heads were cut on cockpit.

Had long talk with Quezon. Quezon affectionate with family
—wife, two daughters, one son. Wears army field cap, beige
jacket, sometimes army pants (jodhpurs) or striped slacks.
Slippers. In wheelchair.

Major McNair said many soldiers who didn't fit in well any-
where in Army before the war now are among his best men,
notably as watchers who have to sit in exposed positions
throughout raids in constant touch by one-way telephone with
AA command post. Some men crack up under bombing. Army
gives them other jobs. Everybody agrees bombs more terrifying
than other weapons because individual has no way of fighting
them. Everybody (except MacArthur) seems as scared as staff
captain who said, *'I never knew I could or would be so fright-
ened. Wonder if Fll get over it."

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Attitude of some Americans out here toward Filipinos is
distrustful, somewhat hostile. These Americans claim the
Filipinos should have been able and prepared to defend their
country without our help, since they were asking for inde-
pendence. I say this argument is absolutely false and unjust.
Our bargain was to free them in 1946, not December 8, 1941.
Until 1946 it was our job to defend this American territory.

However there is justification for our officers' contention
that even our Army felt disinterested in making thorough de-
fense preparations as long as independence was coming in
1946.

January 1 1 . Sunday.
Chaplain Trump of 4th Marines, old friend from Shanghai,
said three services during morning air alarms, which almost
continuous. Trump and I used to argue hammer and tongs in
Shanghai over U. S. policy. He was a rabid Republican and
isolationist.

I played poker with Quezon's aides most of morning, losing
$20 to President's physician, a major. We played in the hospital
mess tunnel, and halted our game while chaplain read services
to doctors and nurses and they all joined in singing hymns-
After game I went out for a smoke and the air alarm sounded
while I was talking to Sergeant Domingo Adversario, for 14
years MacArthur's orderly, for 12 years in army and 2 as per-
sonal servant. Domingo, 39, and Solomon Bayoneta, ex-Fili-
pino Scout now chauffeur, saved MacArthur's life the other
day. Here's the official report: ''MacArthur narrowly escaped
serious injury during recent bombing raid when a large bomb
exploded less than 10 feet from him. General was accompanied
by two orderlies, one of whom served him 1 2 years. During raid
the orderlies protected the general to best of their ability pro-
viding him with steel helmet and shielding him with their
bodies. Piece of rock struck general in shoulder and one faith-

WE STILL NEED PLANES

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ful orderly was wounded in hand/* This report dated January
1, refers to December 29 bombing, first big Corregidor blitz.

Here's the way Domingo tells it. **We were inside General's
house Topside, when air alarm sounded, I told General go
down (apparently to air raid shelter) and he ask me i: I hear
airplane. When I hear he go outside we all three leaning against
embaokment. One bomb striking tree in front of us, I holding
helmet front General's face, my face, half and half, chauffeur
standing behind him.

"Piece shrapnel hit my finger where holding helmet cut it
almost one half off but it now recover. After, Japanese planes
come very near and machine-gun us but we no time to dodging
only lean backward. I feel general's knees shaking."

MacArthur is certainly a hero to his valet, Domingo thinks
he's wonderful. Domingo went to Washington with the Gen-
eral and lived at Ft. Myer where he spent his happiest years
although Domingo had to leave his bride of three months be-
hind when he went to U. S. Said MacArthur always in tip-top
condition, walks, walks, walks constantly, does calisthenics, no
drinks. Always leave parties at 1 1 P.M.

Domingo objects to one part of his job— waiting on table for
women. Also doesn't like ironing and household chores which
feels unsoldierlike.

Scene in tunnel during air raid. Filipino workman with red-
haired statue of Virgin carefully guarded and wrapped. Figure
over half his size.

Note for story— if can ever send. Corp. William Hamby,
Tillamook, Oregon, who fetched wounded to hospital during
air raids. Former logger, now chauffeur for a colonel. One of
wounded was Hamby s best friend, whose leg was blown off.
He died after whispering to Hamby, "Keep 'em flying, fellow."

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URING those first days when Corregidor was under
heavy bombing attacks we were too busy keeping our skins
intact to learn much about what was going on in Bataan. It
was still terra incognita.

I watched the maps on the walls of the USAFFE tunnel and
saw that our lines were holding pretty well. That was encourag-
ing until I made the shocking discovery that the powerful army
of more than 150,000 troops which we had imagined was de-
fending Luzon had existed only in our imaginations.

Instead of sixty thousand American soldiers, there was only
one regiment of infantry, the 31st, and in its biggest fight its
front-line strength was only 636 officers and men.

There were less than thirty tanks in Bataan.

There were about ten airplanes.

The American forces, including tanks, Air Corps personnel.
Signal Corps, and Engineers, did not exceed five thousand on
Bataan with another seven or eight thousand on Corregidor.

The remaining soldiers on Bataan were some thirty thou-
sand Filipinos, of whom approximately half were well-trained
Scouts and the remainder virtually untrained recruits.

Our original front line on Bataan, which was designated as
the MLR or Main Line of Resistance, extended from Moron
on the China Sea side to Abucay on the east coast. On the
USAFFE maps the original MLR was indicated in blue pencil
with the Japanese positions penciled in red.

General MacArthur did not have even enough troops to
hold an unbroken line across the fifteen-mile-wide peninsula,
and he had to leave part of the mountainous area in the center
undefended. The Japs quickly found that out.

After January 15 the blue pencil lines on the maps began
to be pierced by little red arrows, indicating where Jap infil-

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tration parties had come through the undefended portion of
the slopes of Mt. Natib.

Then more and more red lines appeared until finally about
January 26 the whole former MLR was indicated in red and
our second line of resistance had suddenly become the main
line.

The second front line which our forces held until the fall
of Bataan extended from below Bagac on the west to the town
of Pilar on the bay side. That meant that only about eighteen
miles of the entire Bataan Peninsula was in our hands.

The front line crisscrossed the only east-west road on the
peninsula, so that neither side could use it. Our communica-
tions and transport of supplies were confined to a horseshoe-
shaped portion of the road around the southern end of the
peninsula, extending from the front lines on the west back to
Mariveles and Cabcaben, and then up to the front lines on the
east. Communications with Corregidor were maintained from
Mariveles and Cabcaben.

Mt. Bataan and Mt. Mariveles, the latter 4,600 feet high,
were within our lines. Both mountains ran from northeast to
southwest and both were so rugged and jungle-covered that no
roads could be built across them. General Wainwright com-
manded the western sector, and General Parker was in com-
mand of the eastern sector on the Manila side of Bataan.

After the censors decided to let us tell some of the story of
the war in the Philippines, I began to commute between Ba-
taan and Corregidor, spending two days with the troops getting
stories and then two days back at Corregidor writing them
and getting them past the censorship. I found that by per-
sonally chaperoning the stories to General Sutherland's desk
and by haunting the USAFFE tunnel until he finally read the
copy, the stories moved much faster.

Starting out from Corregidor to make a circuit of Bataan,
I would ride over in one of the PT boats, or with Ensign
George Petritz in his launch, and get off at Mariveles. Going

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into the calm waters of Mariveles Bay we would pass the sub-
marine tender Canopus aground at the entrance and the
Dewey floating dry dock. The dock was kept submerged during
most of the day while the Jap bombers were overhead and
then floated late in the afternoon. It was used to repair the
PT boats and other small craft which maintained communica-
tion between Corregidor and Bataan.

Landing at the Mariveles quarantine station I would walk
a few hundred yards to the road and hitchhike a ride on the
first passing vehicle. The road ran straight and level for about
two miles north from Mariveles. A mile of the level stretch
was being widened as a runway for the bombers which we all
expected would fly in any day.

For the first few weeks, until the gasoline situation sud-
denly became alarming and strict rationing was enforced, the
road was always thick with traffic. Dust coated the leaves and
vines and bushes, hung thickly over the roadway. It was so
blinding that when two vehicles met, one had to pull up along-
side the road and let the dust from the other subside before
proceeding.

General Wainwright's field headquarters were an hour-and-
a-half drive from Mariveles through the thick dust and under
the heavy canopy of foliage which nearly blacked out the sun.
You turned off the main road, into a single-track road leading
up the mountainside and toward the middle of the peninsula.
As you went higher the underbrush grew less thick, but the
great trees, with their enormous bases, seemed to grow even
taller and the vines extending from the tree tops to the ground
thicker.

Because of the trees and hilly country it was impossible to
make much use of our artillery on the west coast of Bataan.
Some big guns were spotted on points of land projecting into
the China Sea, including some 155's and an old 6-inch naval
gun which MacArthur s artillerymen had dug up from some-
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area and time after time they inflicted terrible slaughter on
Japanese forces trying to attack our lines.

There were also some smaller, more mobile 75-mm, guns
on the west side of our line, right in the front-line foxholes
and trenches with our troops. Many of the artillerymen were
friends of Mel Jacoby, who had served in the same ROTC
unit at Stanford, and Jacoby and I tried many times to locate
them in the field but never succeeded.

A couple of miles from Mariveles by airline, but some five
or six miles by road, was a level place in the hills known as
Little Baguio. In this area of giant trees were concentrated
behind-the-line headquarters for Bataan.

At Little Baguio food, munitions, clothes, and supplies were
distributed to the front-line units. The anti-aircraft control
post for guns sprinkled around Bataan was located there and
the headquarters of General George and his midget Air Force
were near by.

The main road ran from Little Baguio to the small town
of Cabcaben, at the southeastern tip of Bataan. Behind Cab-
caben were Base Hospital No. 2, with three thousand beds in
the open air, and a refugee camp for some twenty thousand
Filipino civilians who had fled from their homes.

Cabcaben consisted of two palm-lined dusty streets leading
down to the bay front and to the stone jetty at which the sup-
ply barges from Corregidor were tied up to load and unload.
Driving through the town you turned north along the Ma-
nila Bay side of Bataan and came to our airfields, two wide,
brown, and dusty runways. Anti-aircraft batteries, including
New Mexico's 200th, were hidden in camouflaged positions
around the tunways.

This side of the peninsula was much more level and open
than the west coast, and the beaches were low and smooth.
Barbed-wire entanglements were stretched out into the shal-
low water to guard the beaches. The handful of tanks and
mounted 75's still in action maintained a patrol along the

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road, which ran through two small bayside villages and up
to the city of Balanga, smashed flat by Japanese dive bomb-
ers and artillery. The area of rice fields extended about four
miles inland from Manila Bay and this open terrain was domi-
nated by our artillery. The front lines consisted of foxholes,
trenches, and machine-gun strong points, protected by barbed
wire.

This was the setting in which the Battle of Bataan was
fought, from January i to April 8. The battle developed in
three stages. We won the first round; the second was a stale-
mate; and the third was a black and bitter and crushing defeat.

The first phase of the battle extended from January i until
February lo. After preliminary skirmishing while our ad-
vance units were still fighting delaying actions, the Japanese
hit our main line of resistance on January 6 at Moron on the
western flank. Having taken most of Luzon almost without a
struggle they pushed on, recklessly and confidently, and ca[>
tured Moron. The weary 26th Cavalry, which had borne the
brunt of fighting in the Lingayen area, was ordered to counter
attack. They recaptured Moron.

Then the Japanese hit our right flank along the shore of
Manila Bay and pushed back the lines of the 41st Division,
Philippine Army. The Japanese suffered heavy losses for every
foot they gained, for they were under fire from our big 155
artillery. Then came a momentous day in the history of the
Philippines. MacArthur ordered the 41st Division to attacl;
and restore their lines. Up to then no unit of green Filipino
soldiers had done anything except retreat, under orders, as
we withdrew into Bataan.

The 41st went forward under a blasting barrage. They re-
stored their positions. They routed the Japs out of the fox-
holes and trenches from which the 41st had withdrawn. They
found they could defeat the Japs and they pressed their at-
tacks far beyond their original positions— so far that they had
to be recalled in order to straighten our lines.

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The Japs thrust at another place, a few miles inland up
the slopes of Mt. Natib. Their agile soldiers found that part
of the mountain was undefended and slithered through and
into the rear of our lines. They climbed trees and began snip-
ing, picking off our officers and the men carrying supplies to
the front. Simultaneously they made a headlong attack against
the 51st Division of the Philippine Army, which was holding
positions inland and adjacent to the 41st. The 51st was driven
back for a half mile.

MacArthur called on his lone American infantry regiment,
the 31st, to restore the gap. In five days of dogged, foot-by-foot
fighting, the 31st regained all but 150 yards of the salient. But
by that time hundreds and hundreds of Japs had infiltrated
over Mt. Natib and our positions were becoming untenable.
On January 26 MacArthur had to withdraw his forces back
to the second and final main line of resistance, extending from
Pilar to Bagac. There could be no further retreat.

The Japs thought it was all over. They pushed forward,
confidently marching down the east coast road in groups of
five and six hundred. Our i55*s blasted them off the road and
the Jap drive was stopped cold. By the enci of January the
Japs had failed in their attempt to crack our line in frontal
assaults. Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, the Japa-
nese commander, gave up and withdrew his forces for a few
miles.

Homma tried new tactics. He attacked MacArthur's flanks
from the China Sea side. This was a serious, almost a fatal
threat to Bataan. The Japanese landed on five points of land
along the west coast. MacArthur couldn't withdraw troops
from his front line to face them. That would have left the front
wide open. But somewhere MacArthur found the men he
needed, half a company here, ten men there, a squad from
somewhere else.

These makeshift forces penned the Japs on the points and
prevented them from cutting the west road and coming in

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the rear of our front lines. Part of the 57th under Colonel
George Clarke, and 45th Filipino Scouts, after aiding the 31st
U.S. Infantry in fighting on the east coast, were rushed over
to fight against the landings. The naval battalion of Marines
and sailors, commanded by Commander Frank Bridget,
pitched in. The PT boats broke up one attempt by the Japa-
nese to reinforce their landings. Three P-40's took the air
one night and bombed and strafed another landing group.

Through the thick jungle our forces inched their way for-
ward to mop up the Japanese on the points. The fighting was
slow and hard and costly. But finally, about February 10, the
last Japanese was killed. Altogether about 2,500 of them died
in the futile attempts to crack our flanks.

Homma made one final effort. A Japanese regiment drove
a wedge into the western side of our front lines. That sector
was held by Igorots from the mountains of Baguio. The Igorots
did not crack. They fought until they were killed and finally
piled up so many enemy bodies in front of their positions that
the Japanese drive lost its momentum. The Japs dug in in
their salient, determined to fight to the last man. The Igorots
led an attack by our infantry and tanks which wiped them
out to the last man. Our front was restored.

That was the last gasp of the first Japanese offensive. Hom-
ma s original landing force had been cut to pieces. MacArthur
estimated **the Jap" had lost thirty thousand men killed or
wounded in six weeks of fighting in Bataan. The Japs were
short of ammunition, of medicine and guns. They pulled back
all along the line. MacArthur s spies, coming out from Manila,
reported the Jap officers were having trouble getting troops
to go to the Bataan front. Some of the younger Japanese threw
away their uniforms and tried to disguise themselves as Fili-
pinos. The Jap officers rounded up every Filipino with a short
haircut, suspecting him of being a Jap soldier.

Then came the second phase, the lull %vhile the Japs waited
for reinforcements. They might have won in the first phase if

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they had not moved their Air Force to the south, to Malaya
and the Netherlands East Indies. From the end of January
until nearly the end of March the Japs had only a handful of
planes, possibly less than thirty, flying in the Philippines at
any one time. That was the reason Bataan held so long.

The Japanese were waiting for reinforcements and MacAr-
thur, too, was awaiting reinforcements. His soldiers were full
of confidence. They had the feeling of victory. They had licked
the Japs and thought they deserved reinforcement. Wain-
wright wanted help. General Parker wanted help. So did Jones
and Lim and Capinpin. They knew they could win with the
proper tools. They believed the Philippines had to be held,
now that Singapore and Java were going. They thought help
was coming. The Japs, apparently, knew that it wasn't.

So the Japs took their time and brought in their reinforce-
ments and brought their planes back, about the end of March.
Meantime our forces, which a few weeks before had been con-
fident of final victory, were running out of food, medicine,
and bullets, and out of hope too.

The Japs called in General Yamashita, who had blitzed
Malaya and Singapore. On April i, with his reinforced troops,
Yamashita struck. His planes hit everywhere at once. His
troops smashed against our front all along the line. They
landed on the cliffs on the China Sea coast and simultaneously
on the level east coast of Manila Bay. They attacked every-
where in that final terrible assault.

For eight days our forces held: the young Filipinos, the
veteran Scouts, the survivors of the 31st Infantry, the aviators
without airplanes.

Then the Battle of Bataan was ended.

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24

UT before it ended, there was a lot of excitement. One
part of the Battle of Bataan I enjoyed was riding in the PT
boats. They offered an opportunity to strike at the enemy
instead of just sitting and taking it during bombings. They
went fast and hit hard, and they gave you a good chance to
get away and come back to hit again later. They were one
weapon that we had that could hold its own. Unless you were
very unlucky, riding them wasn't especially dangerous. They
were so small and fast that they were difficult to hit. During
the Philippine campaign only one was lost due to enemy action.

For sheer pleasure of movement, the PT boats are hard to
beat. They cut cleanly and powerfully through the water. Of
all the moving vehicles I have ridden in this war, the greatest
thrill has been the take-offs in big four-engined naval patrol
bombers when they get up on the step and tear across the
water at loo miles an hour before lifting into the air. Then
come the dive bombers in a dive, and then the PT boats.

There was some trouble co-ordinating the work of the PT's
with that of the Army in the Philippines. The Army men, in-
cluding those manning the artillery on the west coast of Ba-
taan, thought that the entire Asiatic Fleet had left for Java in
the early days of the Luzon campaign. In addition, the Navy
sometimes neglected to inform the artillery batteries when
the PT s were going out on a mission. Consequently the PT's
were sometimes fired on by our own artillery from the Bataan
shore. But the PT men got even in an ironic way. They, in
turn, thought that our entire Air Force had been destroyed.
And one day when one of our few precious last P-40's flew low
over Sisimen Cove, where the PT's were based, the PT's cut
loose with their .50-caliber machine guns and put a lot of
holes in the plane.

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I could never write about the PT boats from Corregidor,
even after riding on them and getting first-hand stories from
Lieutenant John Bulkeley and the rest of the crews. Admiral
Rockwell refused to permit any mention of torpedo boats in
my dispatches, even though Washington announced, and
every paper in America headlined, the successful attacks. The
admiral argued that the Japs might think they had been hit
by a destroyer, a submarine, or even a cruiser.

On Corregidor we first heard about the PT's on January
ig. The previous night Lieutenant Bulkeley had made his first
attack on Jap shipping in Subic Bay with two boats. Bulkeley
and PT-34 got back safely after creeping to within 1,000 yards
of an enemy transport or cargo vessel of 2,000 tons and put-
ting a pair of torpedoes in it. PT-31, commanded by Lieuten-
ant Edward DeLong, ran aground in Subic and was lost. De
Long and ten of his men finally reached our lines in two
Filipino bancas. His second in command. Ensign William H.
Plant of Long Beach, California, and two more of the crew
disappeared in the night.

Two days after Bulkeley *s first attack, I asked Commander
Cheek if I could go out on a raid with the PT's.

Cheek said, *'Are you crazy?"

"Probably," I said. "But Tm tired of sitting here taking it.
I want to see us hand out something for a change." Mike took
me to Admiral Rockwell who gave his permission.

Bulkeley came over to Corregidor later that afternoon and
I met him in the Navy tunnel. He was of medium height with
cold greenish eyes, and thinning hair. He impressed me as
cool, competent, and calculating. He was very much on his
toes and he ran his show in his own way.

I told Buck that Td like to go out with him.

"Our job is essentially suicide missions," he said.

"Well," I said, "I've been around Bataan quite a bit lately
and those fellows over there aren't on any picnic. It's the same
medicine here on Corregidor. Your boats are at least on the

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move, and if you do get bumped off it will be quick and prac-
tically painless, and you'll be shooting when you go down/'

'*You can come out tonight if you want to/' Bulkeley said,
"but you better wait until tomorrow. I'm taking some Army
men up and landing them behind the Jap lines where they
are going to do some demolition work. It should be interest-
ing/' I said okay, that sounded fine.

I went over the next night to go out on the ''routine patrol."
The PT base in Sisimen Cove was a quiet beautiful harbor
on the southern shore of Bataan. I met Bulkeley's senior offi-
cers. Lieutenants Kelly, DeLong, and Schumacher and En-
signs Akers, Cox, and Richardson, and the members of the
crews.

Buck and the senior officers lived in a native village at the
shore end of their wooden pier. They had taken over a nipa
shack on the water front and put in their beds and pictures
of their families. **Mat," a Packard engineer who did wonders
in keeping the boats running, shared their quarters. The other
officers had another house and the crews shared a larger build-
ing.

The PT crews messed on board their ships which were fully
equipped with galleys and sleeping quarters despite their
small size. Sometimes they went out to dinner on the Mary
Ann J the luxurious steam fishing yacht owned by Jan Mars-
man. The Mary Ann was flagship of the inshore patrol com-
manded by Lieutenant Ted Raymond of Amesbury, Massa-
chusetts. Her officers were mostly young naval reservists who
had been in business in Manila and had been called into the
Navy when war broke out. Usually an ex-fishing boat or a big
Philippine Fisheries Department boat would go out at night
with one of the PT's for offshore patrol, while smaller fishing
yachts would assist the Philippine Army Q-boats and the ex-
Yangue River gunboats in patrolling Manila Bay and the
inner coast of Bataan.

Those youngsters who manned the fishing boats for off-

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shore patrol were real heroes. If any enemy ship sighted them
they were dead ducks. The PT s could put on speed and run
away, or could stay there and fight, but the fishing boats could
only make 18 knots wide open on a calm sea. Their few ma-
chine guns were not much protection.

One fishing boat, or one of the PT s, tied up each night at a
buoy at the outside end of the mine fields. It kept a lookout for
hostile craft and also served as a guide for our incoming patrol
boats and for the submarines which came into Ck>rregidor
from the end of January up until Bataan fell, and even after-
waid.

Before we shoved oflE for my first patrol I made a list of the
boys on board, fourteen in all. Then Ensign Richardson came
along and took my name, ''Just in case, you know." The crews
were superstitious about the number thirteen and would
either take twelve or fourteen men along.

Unfortunately, from the news point of view, that patrol
turned out to be routine. We went up the coast and saw the
huge fires behind the Jap lines where the bodies of men killed
by our artillery were being cremated. We went into the mouth
of Subic Bay and failed to sight anything. I found the bunks
down below too stuffy and slept on deck, curled up by the
forward torpedo tube with my padded life jacket for a pillow.

Any number of times I arranged to go out in the hope of
seeing some action, only to have the mission called off at the
last minute. One other night I did go out with Lieutenant
Vince Schumacher and we thought we sighted a ship. For a
long time we crept up on it, with the torpedoes ready to fire.
Then we discovered it was a big rocky island off the upper
entrance to Subic Bay. At any rate, riding the PT boats was a
pleasant way to get a good sleep— though it was a little wet
sometimes on deck— and we had such good meals on the Mary
Ann before taking off that the trips were a pleasure.

Bulkeley and PT-4 1 boat got their second big catch exartly a
week after the first. It was Sunday night, January 85. Buck

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had warned me that it would be routine and so I stayed ashore.

With George Cox at the throttle, PT-41 went into Subic Bay
and made an attack at full speed on what Buck told me was a
vessel of about 4,000 tons, with a single slanting funnel. They
were under heavy fire, and on their way out they luckily
dodged a boom of wire and lumber that the Japs had spread
across the bay.

Shells from the damaged ship and from shore guns chased
them all the way out of the bay. That made them mad and
two nights later they took two boats, sneaked up inside the
bay, and gave the shore batteries a thorough peppering with
machine-gun bullets. I always got a kick out of Buck's descrip-
tion of the sinking of that second vessel.

"It was a classic torpedo attack," he said, ''delivered at full
throttle in the face of enemy fire." I investigated further and
found that Buck called the attack **classic" because that was
the way he and his crews had practiced in training. Actually,
it was the first attack of its kind in history.

About the second week in February the high-test gasoline
needed to run the PT's began to give out. I used to see Bulkley
and DeLong and the others on most of my trips around Ba-
taan and one day Buck told me about a plan they were work-
ing out.

'* We've got only about enough gasoline for one good opera-
tion and we have only a few torpedoes left. Then we'll be tied
up here. I have suggested that we fill up our boats with the
gas that's left and go out and raid Jap shipping along the
China coast. After firing all our torpedoes we'll land along the
coast, destroy the boats, and hike overland to Chungking."

Buck had served with the Asiatic Fleet and done valuable
intelligence work which had won him the nickname of ''Char-
lie Chan" in the Navy. He was well acquainted with the China
coast.

I liked his idea and included myself in. "While we're at it,"
I said, "why not capture some seaport along the China coast

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like Swatow. I have some recent dope on the Jap garrisons
there and on the positions they hold. It ought to be a cinch
to take over one of those places provided arrangements can be
made for the Chinese Army to co-operate. The Japs don't
hold the coast solidly and their garrisons are small in most
places."

Buck liked my idea and asked me to go to work on it.

"I have made friends with a Chinese officer, Lieutenant
Colonel Chi-wang, who is stationed at headquarters of the
Philippine Army in Bataan/' I told Buck. 'TU bring him
down here and introduce you two and ask him to send a mes-
sage to Chungking getting approval for your landing.'*

I went up into the woods of Bataan and talked to the colonel.
Wang had been sent to the Philippines as an observer for
Chiang Kai-shek and when war broke out was attached to
the American forces as liaison officer. He was a West Point
graduate and had led his troops in the Shanghai battle in
1937. He was under orders to report to his regiment in Burma
as soon as possible. I told him I knew how he could get to
China, and then took him down to meet Bulkeley.

The colonel agreed to send a wire to Chungking asking
permission for us to land and requesting facilities to get us
to Chungking. In a few days an answer came back. Chungking
approved the plan and all arrangements were being made.
Meanwhile Admiral Rockwell okayed Bulkeley *s plan— with-
out the Swatow feature. Nat Floyd of the New York Times
heard about the project and decided to go along, one way or
another.

Through ways known in both Army and Navy, Dean Sched-
ler and I helped Bulkeley obtain equipment for the expedi-
tion: packs and kits and gear of various kinds not needed by
the troops in Bataan.

Bulkeley and his officers originally figured on taking seventy-
eight men in three boats. Then Nat managed to get the
fourth boat in operating condition. We estimated that with

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the element of surprise and with the fire power furnished by
the four boats, we would have a good chance to overcome the
Jap garrison on the Swatow water front.

With everything all set, the plan was called off. The boats
had a more important mission— taking MacArthur out to the
new command he was ordered to assume in Australia. When
41 boat left Sisimen Cove, with General MacArthur aboard,
there was one hitchhiking reporter along. Nat Floyd had
concealed himself in the lazaret. Lieutenant Colonel Wang
was taken out by submarine to the southern Philippines and
then flown to Australia.

After landing MacArthur in Mindanao, Bulkeley and Kelly
in PT-41 and PT-35 attacked and possibly sank a Japanese
cruiser off the island of Cebu. Kelly's boat was bombed and
strafed by Japanese planes the following day and finally
beached, with all but three of the crew either killed or
wounded. Bulkeley, Kelly, Akers, Cox, and one or two others
reached Australia by airplane, but their crews and the remain-
ing officers stayed behind in the Philippines where they were
either captured or killed, or managed to escape to the hills to
live as best possible until the war ends.

The PT boats more than proved their worth, in bringing
out MacArthur if for no other reason. But in a way I shall
always regret that we didn't get a chance to capture Swatow.
Bulkeley's wife was bom there and it would have been a nice,
sentimental gesture.

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OON after I started going over to Bataan to get stories I
began hearing about a Captain Wermuth, who, it seemed, was
a terror to the Japs. Everyivhere soldiers and officers advised
me, **See Wermuth if you want some good stories/'

The first time I heard about him was when I went over to
visit the field artillery. By that time I had visited the anti-
aircraft and seen it in action, and I wanted to see how the
artillery units were fighting.

I thought it would be a real quiet trip. In my ignorance I
believed that the work of the artillery was entirely impersonal:
our guns sat some distance behind our lines and fired at the
Jap front lines, while the Jap artillery concentrated on our
front lines. And nobody fired at the artillery.

I went over one night with Colonel Pete Irwin, Operations
officer on General MacArthur s staff, and spent tlie night at
USAFFE field headquarters high up on the slope of Mt. Mari-
veles. Cars could go only part way up the mountainside and
then you transferred to a jeep that negotiated the rest of the
climb over a steep path winding between the trees.

Colonel Bill Marquat fixed me up with a bed and four
blankets— three underneath to keep the cold wind from blow-
ing up through the canvas, and one on top. I met an M.P., a
New York City boy who had just been transferred from Cor-
regidor and who admitted he was scared to death of the woods.
Monkeys were chattering in the dark treetops and the M.P.
jumped every time the wind rustled the bushes. The officers
were kidding him about the woods being full of pythons, but
actually nobody I met in Bataan had seen a python or a
crocodile or anything very wild except small monkeys.

Next morning we had breakfast in the open with Brigadier
General Marshall and then I went on with Colonel George

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Williams and Major Wade Cothrane who were also en route
to inspect the artillery. During the night, reports had been
received of a large concentration of Japanese ships off the
west coast of Bataan. As we reached a clear spot along the
road overlooking Bagac and the China Sea, we could see the
smoke of two ships over the horizon. They were apparently
standing out to sea and waiting until nighttime to unload
their troops or supplies.

The sight was far from reassuring. For several nights pre-
viously we had heard on Corregidor that a large Japanese
armada was hovering off the coast and each time we took a
deep breath and said, **Well, it looks like this is it." But the
ships went past, just out of range of Corregidor's guns, and
probably on down to Borneo and Java.

About four miles from the Manila Bay side we emerged
into a flat area and turned left along a trail through the rice
fields toward the front lines. Cothrane knew the way and he
took us to the commander of the 313th Filipino Scout Field
Artillery, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Quintard. Colonel
Quintard's headquarters were in an open cut about thirty
yards long which was being used as a trench. There were one
or two trees near the trench and another clump a few hundred
feet up ahead, but except for that the country was stretched
out open and level to Mt. Natib, up to the north, and to
Manila Bay on the east.

I couldn't see any guns but Colonel Quintard said they
were in the tree clump up ahead. Only part of the trees were
real, he said, and the rest were camouflage. All around us the
rice fields were partially burned away and the ground pitted
with shellholes and bomb craters.

'Tou've come just in time," the colonel said. ''At twelve-ten
we are going to fire a mission against some Japs across the way.
About five or six hundred of them gather there at noon every
day in a bivouac area, probably to eat. We've got the position
plotted and will give them a surprise."

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'*How did you get the information?" I asked.

**An officer named Wermuth, captain in the 57th, has been
doing some scouting over there. He and a couple of Scout ser-
geants are there watching the firing for us.

''Wermuth," the colonel went on, **has been spotting a lot
of targets for us. Couple of weeks ago he volunteered to set
fire to the town of Samal, on the other side of the lines, so
that we could see to fire into it and wipe out some batteries
the Japs had planted there. He set the fires all right but Fm
afraid we didn't give him very much time to get out before
we opened up.*'

The colonel told us that as a rule his guns fired mostly at
night while the Japs fired mostly in the daytime, taking ad-
vantage of their aerial observation. Our gunners were forced
to depend on scouts and on their knowledge of the country
which enabled them to fire at open areas where the Japs would
be most likely to establish camps and set up guns. We had one
last observation post on Mt. Natib. A few days later that ob-
servation point was in Jap hands and from then on our artil-
lery was nearly blind.

Colonel Quintard told us about it. "Mr. Moto is over us
here in his observation plane just about from sunup to sun-
down. When we have to fire, as we will in a few minutes, he
spots our positions and radios back to his own guns. Then we
catch hell. The dive bombers were on us for three hours yes-
terday. So we try to fire mostly at night, or when Mr. Moto's
back is turned."

Maybe Mr. Moto heard the colonel mention his name. In
any case, while the colonel was still speaking, he appeared
overhead. He putt-putted past from east to west, did a lazy
circle, and then kept going west. We hoped he would keep
on going.

A young Filipino, perched on the wall of the trench, with
a telephone headset over his ears, said to the colonel: ''Bat-
teries all set to fire in ten minutes, sir."

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"Lee," the colonel said, "if you want to go up and watch
the guns shoot, Lieutenant Filemon here will show you the
way." As I climbed out of the trench. Major Cothrane said:
"That firing will last only about ten minutes. That will make
it twelve-twenty. Be sure you are back here by twelve-twenty-
five." He pulled out his watch and pointed to twenty-five min-
utes past twelve. Then he handed me his watch.

"Sure, but what's the rush?" I asked.

"We're having lunch at that time and we don't like any-
body to be late," he said. "Don't forget, no matter what hap-
pens in the meantime, be here at twelve-twenty-five."

It was only about five hundred feet to the guns, which were
big 155's, but for some reason Lieutenant Filemon wanted to
ride over. He backed a car out from under some camouflage
and lost a few minutes doing it, so that we were still some
fifty feet from the clump of trees where the guns were hidden
when they suddenly opened fire. We got out of the car and
went up close and watched the Filipino Scouts running up to
feed the guns, jamming home the big shells and then the
powder charges.

After a few rounds one of the guns coughed out a big ring
of white smoke. It swirled upward in the still air, spreading
but still holding its circular shape, to a height of several hun-
dred feet. I looked up nervously over to the west. Sure enough,
there was Mr. Moto high tailing back in our direction. He
couldn't have missed seeing that smoke ring. The Scouts kept
feeding the guns, and one after another the guns roared with
deep-throated, earth-shaking "whurrumphs."

Major Cothrane's watch said twelve-twenty-five, so Lieuten-
ant Filemon and I climbed in the car and drove back over to
the battery control trench.

The trench was about eight feet wide but only three feet
deep. Over at one end a table was set. Captain Lawrence
Meade and a young lieutenant joined us. I still didn't under-
stand why Cothrane was in such a hurry.

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We were eating corned beef and bread and, I remember
especially, peanut butter and some canned pears. I had out
my notebook and was getting some information from Captain
Meade. He told me the Filipino artillerymen, both the Scouts
and the recruits, were all proving to be fine soldiers. They
had toughened up quickly and were standing up well despite
the frequent dive-bombing attacks by Jap planes.

While he was talking I heard a distant whistling. It seemed
to be three separate whistles. They grew into a scream and
rushed toward us at alarming speed, getting louder and louder
until they burst, direaly overhead. It was my first taste of
shellfire and I determined not to show any emotion. I looked
around and saw that I was all alone at the table. The others
were crouched against the forward wall of the trench, which
was really only a dry creek bed which had been widened and
deepened by a little pick-and-shovel work.

Colonel Quintard got to his feet and finished the rest of
his coffee. He, Colonel Williams, Cothrane, and the young
lieutenant walked over to the other end of the trench where
it was deeper. Meade came back and sat down and since I was
talking to him I couldn't leave, much as I wanted to.

The next salvo came over, bursting up ahead of us about
where our 155's were emplaced. Meade hit the dirt and there
I was sitting alone again. But when the next shells came I got
into the spirit of the thing. As soon as we heard them whistling
rd do a headlong dive to the bottom of the trench. I must
have flopped flat ten times and each time my fountain pen
slid out of my pocket into the dust. Finally Meade finished
and we went over to where the others were crouched against
the forward wall of die deepest part of the trench.

"Now you see why I wanted you to get back,'* Cothrane
said.

**Yes/' I said. *'And one other thing. Unless I'm mistaken,
those Japs mean us. They're not just shooting at anybody over
on this side of the line. They're trying to hit us."

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Colonel Quintard laughed. "That's it. You've got the idea.
It's a good sign that they are shooting back. Means we prob-
ably raised hell with those fellows in the bivouac. When Wer-
muth comes back we'll find out." Sometime later I learned
from Wermuth himself that our salvos had burst squarely
among the Japs.

'*What about our men at the guns?" I asked the colonel.
"Those shells seem to be hitting among them."

"They have slit trenches and foxholes right alongside the
guns. There's nothing they can do but drop into them and
take it. The shells the Japs are sending over are antipersonnel
ammunition which is set to explode over the position where
the Japs estimate our guns to be. Thanks to their airplanes,
their estimates are pretty accurate and our boys are getting a
terrific pounding. In artillery parlance, they have temporarily
neutralized our batteries."

All this time the shells were coming over. I was sweating
and shivering at the same time, and, as usual, wishing I had
a tin hat. Pieces of shrapnel whirred into our trench and I got
my fingers burned picking one up for a souvenir. Colonel
Williams examined it professionally and said it was a frag-
ment from a Jap 105-mm. field gun.

When the Japs ceased firing that day, after sending over
twice as many rounds as we had shot, I rode on down to the
town of Balanga and made arrangements to go up to the front
lines the following night to visit the 31st Infantry. I wanted
to be able to date-line one of my stories "With the 3 1st United
States Infantry at the Bataan Front." My other dispatches had
been "With Anti-Aircraft in Bataan," "With Field Artillery
in Bataan," and so on. Now I wanted to write one "Bataan
FRONT."

My desire to do that had grown out of an encounter with
my old friend and recent rival, Frank Hewlett of the United
Press. By the fortunes of journalistic war I had managed to
get the first dispatches transmitted out of Corregidor and Ba-

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taan. Frank's office heard about it and sent him a wireless
tlirough the Army. He came over to Corregidor to investigate
and I met him on the docks. He told me that he had answered
the wire: "Associated Press unrepresented in Bataan/*

I went over the next night, again with Colonel Irwin. It
was rough crossing the bay and it was already dark when our
launch tied up at the dock in Cabcaben. Stumbling through
the dusty street at the end of the dock, Colonel Irwin found
the khaki-painted sedan that had been sent to meet him and
we climbed in.

We had driven only a half mile up the east road when we
discovered we were in for a really rough trip. Our tiny Fili-
pino chauffeur apparently suffered from night blindness;
someone had done an overenthusiastic job of blacking out his
lights and with the headlights dimmed he couldn't see a thing.
When he turned on his bright lights sentries threatened to
shoot us because the road was within range of Japanese artil-
lery beyond the front.

We zigzagged from one side of the road to the other, nar-
rowly missing the ditches in which many cars had already
been wrecked. Drivers going in the other direction cursed at
us and jammed on their brakes as we almost rammed them
headlong.

By the time we got to Pilar, some five miles from the front,
Colonel Irwin decided it would be suicidal for him to con-
tinue his trip around the peninsula. He bunked for the night
in a nipa shack.

I found my way to the advance headquarters, located in a
sand-bagged dugout on one of the side streets of Pilar. The
commander was a major in the army resen^e, who told me he
had been a Houston, Texas, schoolteacher before he was called
to active duty some months before the war started.

"Are you sure you want to go to the front tonight?" he
asked. "The 31st is in rather a tough spot, attempting to re-
store a salient driven in our lines on the east coast of Mt.

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Natib. And there's a heavy Jap attack in progress just now.'*

By that time I wasn't exactly sure I wanted to go, but I
said, "That's okay. I want to see those Americans in action."

**You won't see much at nighttime," he said, **but go if you
want. We have automobiles going up every hour to carry mes-
sages. There is one due back any minute now."

While we waited for the car the major and two American
lieutenants told me that they had been catching hell from the
Jap artillery all afternoon. The provincial capital of Balanga
a few miles further back had been shelled even worse. The
east coast road had been under fire most of the day.

About 10 P.M. a young Filipino officer pushed aside the
burlap bags at the entrance arid came down the steps into the
dugout. He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

' Third Lieutenant Gonzales reporting for duty, sir," he
said.

The major told him he was to drive up to Abucay Hacienda
and was to take a passenger along. 'Tou probably won't get
any shells," he said, ''but watch out. Their snipers have been
working around here this afternoon and all the way up the
road to the front. They are shooting from the treetops."

Gonzales stumbled out into the darkness and I went after
him, tripping several times on the roots of the big trees under
which the dugout was located. The lieutenant found his car
parked in an open space between two nipa huts across the
street. He awakened the driver, who was in civilian clothes.
Gonzales explained to me that the driver spoke a few words
of English, a few sentences of Spanish, and for the rest talked
to himself in some obscure dialect that Gonzales did not un-
derstand.

We had trouble starting the ancient Chevrolet sedan. Finally
it kicked over on three of its four cylinders, stuttering like an
erratic machine gun. It had no muffler and the sound could
be heard for miles around. The windows would not close. I
had no jacket over my shirt and was shivering in the cold air.

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We chug-chugged out onto the main road and headed north
toward the front. We had no lights, but this driver could see
perfectly in the dark. He pulled up at the side of the road to let
some big trucks pass us in the opposite direction. They were
towing five or six 155 guns on trailers. The country was flat
and we could see the guns outlined against Manila Bay, which
was a lighter expanse against the darkness of the night. Off in
the distance between us and the front we could see the flicker
of numerous fires alongside the road.

*'Hey. What's up here?" I asked Gonzales. "Why are those
guns going away from the front?"

'*They move every night," the lieutenant answered. '*That
is to trick the Japs who have spotted their positions the pre-
vious day. I have never seen them back this far before. Maybe
our front line is moving back, or the Japanese have broken
through."

I could see that my companion was not the optimistic sort.
I asked him how long he had been in the Army.

''About three months, sir," he answered. "I was a law stu-
dent at the University of the Philippines. I never wanted to
be a soldier, but it seemed to be my duty so I got a commis-
sion. Frankly, I never wanted this courier job either. But
again it is my duty."

As we talked, the Chevrolet kept chugging surely and
steadily through the darkness. We came to a bridge and the
lieutenant ordered the chauffeur to halt.

He leaned out the window and shouted, ''Guardias! Sen-
tinelesr

There was no answer. '*That is funny," the lieutenant said.
''There should be sentries here."

I thought to myself, '*Oh-oh. This is going to be like Baguio
all over again. We are going to drive past our lines. But this
time there won't be any way to walk out."

''Drive on," Gonzales told the chauffeur. He turned to me.
"One of our couriers %vas killed last night just about this time

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and in this spot. A sniper fired through the windshield, wound-
ing the driver. The courier got out to investigate and was
killed. Also we have to be very careful on this road because
several times the Japanese have broken through and captured
one of our cars or jeeps. One of them was driving up the road
last night and shot some of our sentries. Then the Japs took
the sentries' uniforms and assumed their posts. When an-
other of our cars drove up they stopped it and killed every-
body in it."

If the lieutenant was trying to scare hell out of me he was
doing a very thorough job. We passed another bridge and
again there were no sentries. By this time we had driven past
the fires, which we saw were eating at the remains of nipa
huts in small bay shore villages which the Japs had shelled
that afternoon. I knew that we were supposed to drive straight
up the coast to the town of Abucay, about a half mile short of
our front lines, and then turn left into a side road leading to
headquarters of the 31st on the slope of Mt. Natib. We drove
through several villages which I had never seen on the map,
and I wondered if we had passed Abucay.

Finally we crossed a bridge and were challenged by a pair
of sentries. The chauffeur jammed on the brakes. It was im-
possible to see much in the darkness, but the sentries* helmets
looked— to me— like Jap helmets. One of them stood three feet
from the car, covering us with a rifle, and the other about
five feet behind his companion. I whispered to the lieutenant,
"Hold your pistol ready!"

After stopping us, the sentries didn't seem to know what to
do next.

''Come over herel" Gonzales ordered the nearest one. He
stood still. Gonzales tried it in Spanish. No answer. He
switched to Tagalog. The soldier just stared at us, waving his
rifle. I started to talk to him in Japanese, and immediately
thought better of it.

Just at this minute there was a tremendous, sharp boom,

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which seemed to break right over our heads. It was followed
by another and another. We realized it was shells going over
us, but we didn't know if they were ours or Jap.

Gonzales leaned over me and stuck his head out of the win-
dow, holding his pistol down below the opening. am Third
Lieutenant Gonzales," he said. **I am en route to the advance
command post of the 31st Regiment at Abucay Hacienda. I
order you to give me the password." The sentry just stood.

The chauffeur came to our rescue. He chattered off a string
of words in some dialect. The sentries grinned and relaxed.
The chauffeur turned around, *'It's okay." He pulled the gear
into low and we drove on. The big guns were still firing.

We drove past the shadowy buildings of Abucay to a point
beyond the schoolhouse and then turned off into a narrow side
road through the fields. A short distance over to our right the
sky was full of tracer fire from machine guns. Some of them
seemed to be hitting around us. "That is the front, sir," Gon-
zales said.

There was a line of low trees— ideal for snipers— along the
road, which climbed gently uphill toward the distant, dim
slope of Mt. Natib. It was pitch black but the driver only
slowed down a little, shifting to second, and kept on. We drove
for about three miles up the slope and came to a spot where
the road leveled off.

"We are almost there," said Gonzales.

Just as he said it there was a sudden outburst of shellfire
from somewhere near by. After my baptism of shelling the
day before I didn't like the sound of it. We stopped the car
and got out, ready to drop beside an embankment along the
roadside. The shells seemed to be bursting over a ridge just
up ahead of us. Finally we decided they weren't aimed at the
road, and drove on up for a few hundred yards.

"This is where we start to walk," the lieutenant told me.
"Too bad you haven't got a steel helmet."

We stumbled on up the road, not daring to use even the

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lieutenant's blackedout flashlight, and felt our way along a
path which circled down through a clump of trees. I kept my
hand on Gonzales' shoulder so as not to lose him. After we
had inched our way along for a couple of hundred yards we
heard a challenge:

*'Halt! Who goes there?"

We identified ourselves and the sentry led us across a wooden
bridge, through a grassy clearing and to a tent pitched against
the hillside. I introduced myself to General Lough, U. S. Army,
and to General Lim, the first Filipino to graduate from West
Point. Tracers were streaking across the sky above the hollow
in the hills which sheltered us, and the shells were still crack-
ing near by.

''You picked a hell of a time to come up," General Lough
said. "I knew you AP reporters got around, but I never ex-
pected to meet one here." I could see that he was wearing a
bathrobe over his uniform. He explained that the 31st had
been attempting for five days to regain a half-mile gap in our
front lines. With heavy losses they had finally recovered all but
1 50 yards. Two hours before my arrival the Japs had made their
first night attack, hitting the 3ist's lines after creeping unde-
tected to within thirty yards of our outposts.

"We finally stopped them with machine guns. The pressure
seems to be off just now," General Lim interposed. **That is
our artillery you hear, firing just ahead of our front-line posi-
tions."

I asked General Lough if I could go up to the actual firing
line, which was about a quarter of a mile away over the hill.
*'I can't send you now," he said. "These trees are lousy with
snipers."

I stayed there for a couple of hours, getting the story of the
31st Infantry, the first and only American infantry regiment
to fight the Japanese in the Philippines. A field telephone con-
nected headquarters with the front lines, and twice while I
was there the outposts reported new Japanese attacks. On the

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second thrust a party estimated at fifty to one hundred Japs
broke through our front line and circled around onto the
road behind us.

Just after we received that news, Lieutenant Gonzales said
to General Lough, **Sir, I must return now to headquarters to
report the situation here/'

**Okay/' the general said, *'but keep your eyes open going
down that road. The Japs that broke through have probably
taken to the trees or dug in along the embankment. Don't
stop for anything."

I shook hands with Lough and with Lim, who despite the
presence of snipers had been puffing on a thin black cigar,
shielding the light with his hand; and with the young Ameri-
can lieutenants operating the field telephone.

Gonzales led me back to the car, which we were able to see
only when we came to within a few feet of it. The chauffeur
wasn't at the wheel. ''By God, the snipers got him," Gonzales
said. We looked again and found the chauffeur curled up on
the front seat. He was snoring almost loudly enough to drown
out the sound of the shells cracking overhead.

We drove on down the road through the inky blackness and
after a short distance we heard a challenge. It was from a tank
parked by the roadside— an American tank.

One of the tank crew shouted a warning: "Some Jap snipers
broke through and are on this road. We are looking for them
but haven't found them yet. Don't stop for anything until you
hit the main road."

We went on down the road fairly fast and finally came to the
level portion. The main road was only about a half mile
ahead. Suddenly the driver stepped on the brakes so hard
that we were thrown against the front seat.

Our front wheels were within a few inches of a tree which
had fallen squarely across the road. There were trees on both
sides and it was impossible to go around.

**By Santa Maria and all the saints," Gonzales said, "it looks

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like we have run into an ambush!" I was wishing to Heaven
that I'd brought a tommy gun along instead of a notebook.

We told the chauffeur to try to run over the tree. The
bumper scraped and jammed and we saw we couldn^t make
it. There was nothing to do but climb out of the car and
move it.

"Wait until I count three/' I said, "then all jump out,
swing the tree off to the left, hop back in, and get the hell
out of here."

It couldn't have taken us more than twenty seconds to jump
out, shove the tree aside, and run back to the car. Every min-
ute I expected a flock of bullets in my back, but not a shot \vzs
fired. I still don't know how that tree got on the road. It might
have been knocked flat by shellfire, or the Japs who placed it
there may have been driven away before we arrived. We rode
on back to headquarters at Pilar and pulled up outside the
dugout.

Gonzales said to the chauffeur, "That's all for tonight. You
can park here."

By the first light of dawn I could see the chauffeur's white
teeth glistening in a grin. "Thank you, sir." Almost before
we could shut the rear doors he had stretched out on the
front seat and was sound asleep. For him it was all in a night's
work.

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JDATAAN'S Naval Battalion was called that partly because
its members included some one hundred sailors, and partly
because it was led by a naval officer. Commander Francis J.
Bridget, a veteran aviator and former air attach^ in the Ameri-
can Embassy in Tokyo. Frank came to the Philippines a short
time before the war started and was cited for heroism during
the bombing of Cavite.

The Naval Battalion was bom of urgent necessity late in
January when the Japanese landed troops from barges on five
points of land on the western coast of Bataan. There were
about five hundred men in each of the five landing parties, and
they were under orders to cut the main road along the western
side of the peninsula and thus sever our communications with
the front lines.

The most dangerous Japanese landing, because it was near-
est to the main road, was at Langoscawayan Point, only a mile
from Mariveles. To stop the Japs there, MacArthur called on
the men who were nearest. They were one hundred sailors
stranded at Mariveles when their ships had been sent to the
bottom or departed for Java without them; some three hun-
dred Marines from Cavite Navy Yard who were camped in
the woods behind Mariveles; and about three hundred Army
Air Corps troops— pilots and bombardiers and gunners and
mechanics— whose planes had been destroyed on the ground
or had never arrived. That was the Naval Battalion.

All of these men were novices in jungle fighting. Many of
the sailors had never fired rifles and the aviators had never
tossed grenades. Frank Bridget had never commanded ground
troops. But they pitched into the Japs and pinned them to the
point and fought them for eight, bitter, sleepless days and
nights.

217

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Frank set up his field headquarters a mile from Mariveles.
For a mile north of Mariveles the road had been widened for
a runway for airplanes, and just beyond the wide part it
crossed a small stream and turned away and started to climb
between two low hills. Frank got a couple of sandbags, an
empty box, and a half-dozen field telephones, and set them
up just over the bridge and a few yards off the road on the

The Japs were on the seaward edge of a 300-foot hill which
rose out of the rice fields about three hundred yards away.

Frank fanned out his sailors and Marines and aviator troops,
and sent them crawling into the jungle underbrush covering
the hill. In a few hours they ran into the Japs, advancing
slowly up from the sea and cutting their way through the
underbrush.

Slowly the sailors, aviators, and Marines pushed fonvard,
losing a good many men unnecessarily because they did not
know how to take advantage of cover and didn't know how
to cope with the Japs' tricks. The Japanese gave way, back
toward the end of the point, and toward sundown Frank
called his men back a ways and held a line across the hill.

Then somebody realized that the Japs were well within
range of Corregidor's big guns. That night the 12-inch mor-
tars opened up against an enemy for the first time since they
had been installed on the Rock. They dropped shell after
shell onto the point, just far enough from our own troops to
keep from doing them any damage.

Frank thought that in the morning all the Japs would be
dead or wounded. But in the morning a startled sentry came
running down from another hill near by and announced that
it was covered with Japs. During the night— and probably be-
fore the bombardment started— the Japs had swum from Lan-
goscawayan to another near-by point. Frank didn't have
enough troops to check the advance from this new direction,
so he had to withdraw his men and rush them to the new front.

left.

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The next few nights the Japs kept up that game of leap-
frog, swimming from point to point during the night. They
were obviously awaiting reinforcements, and if they had ar-
rived the fight would have been over, because we did not have
the forces to check simultaneous advances from both points.

About the fourth night Frank outguessed them. He called
for shelling from Corregidor against one of the points. When
the Japs vacated it and swam over to Langoscawayan, Frank
sent a handful of his men with machine guns down onto the
point which the Japs had just left. The next night, when the
Japs tried to swim back again, they ran into machine-gun fire
and were forced back. So they were finally held on Langos-
cawayan. Frank s men moved in to mop them up and clean
them out before reinforcements could arrive.

The Japs employed all the tricks that they used later in the
war. One of them called ''me surrender," and came out from
a tree a few feet ahead of our Marines. When four or five Ma-
rines went over to grab him a hidden machine gun opened
fire and cut them down. Our sailors and aviators were fooled,
and killed, in the same way. But they kept going forward and
killing a few more Japs every day.

When the fighting had been under way for about eight days
I happened to pass by en route to General Wainwright's head-
quarters. I recognized Frank by the roadside, the first time
rd seen him since Tokyo. He seemed to be talking into six
phones at once. During a lull I asked him a foolish question,
'*What would you give to be in an airplane right now?" He
shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, Lord. . . ."

He looked terrible. His faded khaki was caked with dust,
his face lined and strained. From his conversation on the
phones I could tell I'd arrived at a crucial time in the fighting.

"What's that, Hogey?" Frank said excitedly into one tele-
phone. "They've all gathered in one place and are pushing
through the center of your line? You can't hold them? You've
got to hold them, Hogey old boy I"

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He talked into another phone: "Perez," he shouted, 'TerezI
Perez 1 You've got to lay a few shells in there in front of Lieu-
tenant Hogaboom. His center is under heavy machine-gun and
rifle fire. He can't hold out long."

Then to Hogey. **Hold on, kid. I'll give you some help in
a minutel"

He grabbed another phone. ''Miranda. Lieutenant Miranda.
How many rounds have you got left for that mortar? Only
five? Okay. Stand by to fire. We may need them."

"Perezl You have nine rounds, right? Look, you've got to
make every one count. You can't miss. Load your howitzerl"

Frank took a second to explain that on a hill over to the
right he had a 75-mm. howitzer and on another hill a small
mortar. There were also some 75-mm. mountain pieces, but
these couldn't be brought to bear. In some way, Frank seemed
able to listen to all six phones at once and to make the proper
answer into each of them without getting his orders scrambled.
They were field telephones, in little brown canvas cases
stamped Western Electric. Frank spoke into one of them.

''Hogey. How are you doing? That's tough. But hold it.**

"Perez. All set now. When I give you the word, fire."

'*Hogey. Watch this now. Perez is going to throw one over
for you. Tell me where it lands."

"Perez. Okay. Let the first one go."

Up on the hill to the right the howitzer boomed and a few
seconds later the shell burst over the hill just in front of us.

Frank said, "Hogey. How was that? A little off? Okay. Hold
everything."

"Perez. Look, son, give me just ten yards more elevation
this time, please. Let her go right now."

The howitzer boomed again, lobbing the shell into the air,
and the burst seemed a little bit farther away.

"Hogey, How was that? On the nose. Swell, kid. Are they
still coming?"

"Perez. That was just right. Fire the rest of them." Perez

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lobbed over his seven remaining shells, as fast as he could fire
them. But the Japs kept coming. Hogey reported a dozen of
his men were killed and the pressure was still on die center
of his line.

Frank said, ''Hold em!" Then he gasped. ''What's that?
Your center has already had to give way? Well, hold the flanks."

Frank made a sudden decision. He twirled the black handle
on one of the phones he hadn't been using. "Rock (Corregi-
dor)," he said. "Bat. Boston," giving the code names until he
got USAFFE headquarters. The phone wires led to Corregidor
through cables under Manila Bay.

"Colonel," he said, when the connection was made, "I'm
afraid you'll have to give us a hand here. My guns are out of
ammunition and my boys are exhausted. They've been eight
days without sleep and we're having a devil of a time to get
food to them. We'll hold on as long as possible, but if you have
any spare troops around, we'd appreciate your sending them
down." Then, elatedly, "Thank you, sir. I'll do that." He rang
oflf.

Frank shouted at two Marines standing near us. "Hey,
Johnny I Hey, Smitty, boy! You two grab that truck and bum
up the road up to kilometer one-seven-six (four miles to the
north). Tell the commander of the Fifty-Seventh Filipino
Scouts that Corregidor says for him to send some men down
here and give us a hand."

Johnny and Smitty jumped into the truck, backed around,
and raced up the road. Frank yelled to some other Marines.
"Hey, fellows, grab a few boxes of those grenades and hurry
on up the path and get them to Lieutenant Hogaboom. He
needs them."

Frank rang one of the phones. "How's it look now, Hogey?
Hey, that's swell. Your center has reformed and the pressure
has eased off. Nice going. We'll have some help in there
shortly."

Frank remembered to thank Perez. "Perez. That shooting

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of yours did the trick. Our line is holding now. Swell work."

That was one time the Army functioned swiftly. It seemed
like less than twenty minutes after Johnny and Smitty left
when they were back, followed by one of the familiar, red,
open-sided busses which provided most of the transport for
MacArthur's Army.

A heavy-set man, with a thick black beard and a helmet
tilted jauntily over one eye, walked over and saluted. He was
carrying a tommy gun, as were the twenty Filipinos with him.
He said, ^'Commander. I'm a captain of the Fifty-Seventh
Filipino Scouts. Our colonel sent me here with these men.
What is the situation, sir?'*

Quickly Frank told him. His men were tired out, hungry,
under heavy pressure.

The captain saluted again. '*Thank you, sir," he said.
*Tlease give me a runner to show me the path over the hill to
the center of your lines. Some more of our men will be down
later and we'll relieve all of your force by midnight, at the
latest."

He turned to his Scouts, grinned at them, and waved his
arm. **Come on, boys," he said. '*This is our meat." The Scouts
marched off, single file, with the captain leading them.

When the Scouts got up to the front lines they slapped the
exhausted Americans on the back and said, '*We'll take over
now, Joe."

Frank looked like a man who had been saved from a firing
squad just as the executioners* fingers were tightening on
their triggers. He let all his breath out in one big sigh and
collapsed on the ground.

"If that captain ever has any trouble about getting into
heaven," he said, "I hope St. Peter calls me and all my men
as witnesses for him."

Neither Frank nor I knew it, but that captain was Arthur
Wermuth. Within five days he and the Scouts killed the last
Japs on Langoscawayan Point.

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IN ADDITION to their landing at Langoscawayan Point,
the Japs had succeeded in putting men ashore at four other
places on the west coast of Bataan behind our front lines. The
Japs fought to the bitter end, and it took our troops almost two
weeks of slow, costly jungle warfare to wipe out the last of the
landing parties.

On February 5 1 went over to Bataan with Lieutenant Bulke-
ley and hitchhiked up the dusty west coast road on a variety of
vehicles including trucks, ambulances, jeeps, and busses. On
those trips I usually took my gas mask out of its canvas case and
used the case to carry toothbrush, razor, towel, soap, cigarettes,
and Life-Savers. Those last two items were a guarantee of im-
mediate friendship with the troops in Bataan and a passport to
lots of newspaper stories.

That afternoon I stopped along the roadside to talk with
Brigadier General Clinton Pierce, who had been promoted
since the Lingayen fighting and was now directing operations
against the Japanese landing parties. Pierce was as full of fight
as ever, although he was limping around with one foot in a
bedroom slipper. He told me the caliber of the enemy troops
had changed.

''These fellows fighting us on the west coast aren't the scared
kids they threw against us at Lingayen," he said. **These are
real, seasoned fighters. But they are still lousy marksmen. A
sniper took three shots at me before knocking off my toe the
other day." Pierce had won the DSC and he still insisted as he
did at Lingayen he wasn't a hero. **Hell, I'm just doing my
job."

A few miles up the road I jumped off a bus and went over
to chat with the crew of a tank control car. They were listening
by short-wave radio to the tanks which were mopping up the

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Japs on Saysain Point down in the woods below us. They were
all Wisconsin boys. Over the radio we could follow the course
of the fighting as the tanks plunged through the trees to knock
out the Japs who had dug into foxholes and trenches.

"There's a couple of Japs hiding behind that tree over there.
Can you get them?"

**No. I can't get through here. Tell Charley to hit them with
his machine guns." After the tanks had cleaned up, the in-
fantry was to go in the following morning.

The tank troops hadn't known that there were any reporters
in Bataan and they asked eagerly for news of our reinforce-
ments. ''Where the devil are those planes that Henry Ford is
turning out, and the rest of them?"

I drove on up to General Wainwright's headquarters which
were deep in the woods about four miles behind our front
lines. The general was deaf in his right ear and so was I, and
we had trouble arranging ourselves to sit and talk at a bamboo
table outside of his tent.

Wainwright was tall, gray and wiry. He gave an impression
of quiet strength, both physical and spiritual. His troops loved
him, for he would never order them to do anything he himself
would not undertake. He made almost daily trips to the front
and had fought the Japs with rifles and hand grenades.,He and
his Filipino driver had charged and knocked out a Japanese
automatic rifle which was inflicting heavy damage on one of
our front-line posilions. Wainwright, like Pierce and the other
outstanding front-line American officers in Bataan, thought
that his feats were nothing extraordinary. His job was to fight.

At that time Wainwright was optimistic. '*Right now we
have got the Japs stopped and our position is more favorable
than it has been since December 8. If the United States will
send me two divisions of American troops, or provide me with
two trained Filipino divisions, and just enough airplanes to
keep the Jap planes oflE our heads, I will guarantee to drive the
Japs off Luzon in short order." There was no doubt in his

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mind that the Japs could be defeated and the Philippines held.

We talked until late that night and went to sleep under
several blankets and under the comforting, protective roar of
our 1 55's which were firing over our heads against the Japanese
front lines.

In the morning Colonel Frank Nelson and Major Johnny
Pugh of Wainwright s staflE gave me a command car to ride
down to Saysain Point and watch the final mopping up of the
Japs. When we turned off the main road and down the narrow
path leading through the woods to the sea, the driver put on
his steel helmet, placed a hand grenade on the seat beside him,
and cocked his rifle. The woods were still full of Jap snipers,
and for the hundredth time I wished I owned a steel helmet.

In the woods beside the path were many Filipino soldiers,
eating their breakfast of rice and waiting orders to go into
action. Big branches and vines slapped us in the face as we
wound down the road for nearly five miles. The China Sea
was only a short distance away but the underbrush was so thick
that visibility in places was less than a yard.

We found Captain Horace Greeley's command post deep in
the woods in an area where the underbrush had been cut and
trampled into a semblance of a clearing. Greeley had dug a
foxhole between two flangelike roots of a giant tree, and a few
feet away a tiny Filipino was seated in a shallow foxhole, which
looked like a bathtub, talking over a field telephone. Against
the tree were stacked scores of Jap rifles, grenades, light
machine guns, helmets, and gas masks.

Greeley was a pilot and had been attached to the American
Embassy in Chungking until shortly before the war. He and
his squadron had lost their planes in the early Japanese raids
on Luzon and had been given rifles and sent to Bataan to fight
as infantry.

Greeley was near exhaustion. He had a heavy beard and his
face was deeply lined. He described the situation. "The Japs
landed at the end of the point about two weeks ago. Sentries

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discovered them when they had come about a half mile up this
path. We were rushed down here to meet them. Our troops
spread out across the point, which is about two miles wide.
Filipinos are in the center and Air Force units, pilots and
mechanics, on the flanks. It has been slow, tough going. You
have to crawl through the underbrush, and some days we have
advanced less than five yards. Each Jap has to be killed indi-
vidually and that takes time. The last two days it has been
going faster and now their survivors are penned in an area
where the trees and brush have been cleared by mortar fire
and by our tanks. They have dug in and the tanks are working
on them now."

We could hear the tank machine guns and 37-mm. cannon
firing, and frequently the high-pitched crack of a Jap rifle.

The tiny Filipino at the field telephone let out a shout:
'^Hooray, sir," he said to Greeley. **The tanks report that they
can see the water." That meant that our forces were nearing
the seaward edge of the point. The fight should be almost over.
A jeep drove down the path and General Pierce got out and
limped over. Two soldiers with tommy guns went ahead to
watch the trees for snipers and Greeley led us three hundred
yards farther down the winding road to the front-line com-
mand post of Captain C. A. Crome.

Crome s left hand was tied in a blood-soaked bandage, but
he grinned with satisfaction as he addressed the general. **By
God, sir,'* he said, **weVe got them oa the run. The so-and-sos
didn't want to surrender. I hollered to them to quit and they
answered back, 'Nuts to you, Joe,' so I sent in the tanks this
morning. They're coming out now."

Three tanks clattered from around a bend in the road and
stopped by the tree which was Crome s command posL All
around us sharpshooting Filipino Scouts were lying on their
backs with their rifles ready to pick off any Jap snipers still
tied in die surrounding trees. The tank crews climbed out,
covered with sweat and dust. They pulled cigarettes from the

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pockets of their green dungarees and smoked greedily. Others
took big gulps of water from their canteens. Constantly inter-
rupting each other, they reported to Crome.
''We got almost all of them."

''There are still a couple left but they won't do much
damage."

"Joe here shot thirty-five in one trench alone. They ran
around the corner to escape my tank and ran into his fire."

"Two of them took oflE their shoes and threw them at my
tank. We shouted to them to surrender but they wouldn't give
up. We had to run over them."

"Now we're starting to get even with those bastards."

I questioned the tank man who made that last remark and
he explained. "Two days ago, in an operation like this a few
miles up the coast, one of our tanks hit a land mine planted
in the road. The tread was blown off and it was stalled. We
couldn't get down there to get the crew out because the Japs
had machine guns planted all around the road. Our infantry
tried and a lot of them died trying. Yesterday we fought our
way down to the tank. We found that the Japs had covered it
completely with dirt. Our friends had suffocated inside. It was
a hell of a way to die."

With General Pierce we walked twenty-five yards down the
road and came out onto the battlefield. It was about as big as
a football gridiron. All the trees had been smashed and crushed
to pieces, the undergrowth burned and flattened. The entire
area was pitted with foxholes six or eight feet long and trenches
thirty or forty feet in length. The Japanese had dug in to fight
to a finish and had died there. A few survivors had fled
into the brush and retreated down rocky cliffs to the beach
where they continued to fight for nearly a week longer, hiding
in caves in which they were finally killed by dynamite and
grenades. Altogether some five hundred Japs died there.

In describing the fighting in a dispatch for The AP, I wrote
that I remained on the battlefield until the stench of death

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drove me away. In New York, the words ''horror of the scene"
were substituted for "stench of death." That was a serious mis-
take on the part of the editor who made the change. There
was nothing horrible about the scene. Those Japs looked abso-
lutely beautiful: they were so quiet and so perfectly harmless.

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In THE history books the Battle of Luzon will probably be
told in a couple of sentences: "The outnumbered Filipino
and American defenders of Luzon withdrew to the jungle-
covered peninsula of Bataan and to the fortress of Corregidor,
where they held out against large Japanese forces for more
than three months. The defending troops were short of food,
medicine, and ammunition. When the end came all of them
were undernourished and as high as two thirds of their total
numbers were suffering from wounds, malaria, dysentery, and
other diseases."

History may also note that the delaying action fought in
Bataan may have given the United States sufficient time to
recover from the Pearl Harbor disaster and to build up its
Pacific forces to an extent that the Jap advance was finally
stopped— at Coral Sea and Midway.

In itself, Bataan wasn't an important battle, as history-
making battles go. But to the men who fought there it was
highly important. I learned in Bataan that there is no such
thing as "unimportant patrol activity" or "minor skirmishes."
To the men involved in those skirmishes they are all-impor-
tant. You don't have to be killed in one of the world's great
battles to make your death important to you, your family, and
your friends.

To the people who read about Bataan in the future, the
words "Filipino and American troops" will have an anony-
mous quality. "Troops" is an impersonal word. It suggests a
lot of anonymous men in uniform. The troops in Bataan were
neither anonymous nor impersonal, for Bataan was a very inti-
mate and personal war. It was fought in such a small, confined
area that thousands of people got to know each other very well.
They shared each other's successes, the minor victories like

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shooting down a plane or knocking a sniper out of a tree. To-
gether they shared the horrors of final defeat as they are now
sharing the hell of life as helpless prisoners of brutal, vicious
little men with big bayonets.

Sharing things was a big part of the Battle of Bataan. At
first, when there was plenty of everything, it didn't mean
much. Everybody had enough food, enough cigarettes, enough
quinine. The change from * 'enough" to starvation rations came
with startling suddenness. It seemed almost overnight that
there was a severe shortage of gasoline; a complete absence of
canned fruits and vegetables; and only a pack of cigarettes a
week per soldier— if the soldier was lucky. But the sharing con-
tinued. There was no "mine" and ''yours." Everything was
''ours." It was a big event when a company got a case of canned
com, or maybe some coffee or a few pieces of candy. Traveling
around Bataan I would occasionally share those big events and
be able to share some of the cigarettes I had brought from
Corregidor.

I got to know the men themselves: The M.P.'s who would
stop cars and give me a lift; the civilians who ran the motor
pools where cars and trucks were concentrated; the lieutenant
from Denver on guard at the enclosure where the Jap prison-
ers were confined; the nurses and doctors and their Sunday
night "parties" at Base Hospital No. 2 in the Bataan woods,
where they somehow manufactured some ice cream and made
good cookies, and sat around listening to the radio broadcasts
from home; General Weaver, the tank commander, at his
camp in the woods, where he proudly served a "roast beef"
dinner of carabao meat and a bottle of sherry that had gone
sour; the Filipino Scout sergeant at the bakery, who sat up
night after night keeping the records of his men up to date,
and who showed you his own record of more than twenty years
of honorable service. Even the little things, the little happen-
ings of a day, were important.

I remember as if it were yesterday my first visit to Battery G

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of the 6oth Coast Artillery. They had shot down twelve planes
with their anti-aircraft guns. It was strictly sharpshooting, for
they had to conserve their ammunition, and they claimed a
world's record for the number of planes shot down to the ratio
of rounds fired. I spent a day with them at their position on a
hill overlooking the channel between Bataan and distant
Corregidor and saw them shoot.

They were proud of their commander. Captain A. A. Ab-
ston, and he was proud of them, of Lieutenant J. D- Kwiatow-
ski, who came from Pittsburgh; of Lieutenant L. E- McDaniel,
who had flown a P-40 until it was shot down with another
pilot at the controls; of Privates Edward R. Wright, Emest
E. Wheeler, Louis Rio; of Corporal Clarence Graham and
Sergeant Verdi, who came from Netcong, New Jersey. When-
ever Battery G was mentioned in the USAFFE News Bulletin
after that I diought not of ''Battery G" as an anonymous
entity, but of the men who made it up.

Months later, after my return to the United States, I re-
ceived letters from the families of two of the men of Battery
G, people for whom die men of Bataan were anything but
anonymous.

Remembering Bataan, I think of Joaquin Miranda of the
U.S. Engineers. I remembered meeting him in the lobby of
the Manila Hotel the night before Pearl Harbor. He had said
then that '*this waiting is becoming intolerable." When war
came he went to Corregidor with the Engineers, for he was a
master draftsman. Then he volunteered for a dangerous as-
signment—to go into Manila and get badly needed informa-
tion for MacArthur. By night he left Corregidor in a small
banca and disembarked on the north shore of Cavite province.
In the morning he walked over to the nearest road and hid
under a pile of fish in the cart of a Filipino. He rode past the
Japanese sentries and got into Manila without being detected.
He dressed himself in a white suit and lounged around the

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Streets, watching how the Japs acted and how his fellow Fili-
pinos reacted to Jap rule. He delivered scores of messages from
distracted officers on Corregidor to their families in Manila.
He was in the home of one officer's wife when a Jap car drove
up and an English-speaking captain came into the house.

Joaquin slipped off his white coat and went into the kitchen.
He busied himself at the stove. The Jap captain browbeat
the American woman, until she was sobbing and the three-
month-old baby in her arms was crying. Then the Jap
walked into the kitchen. **Who are you?" he demanded of
Joaquin.

**I am the cook, sir.'*

''You don't look like the cook to mel"

"I am sorry, sir, but that is my occupation.*'
• Finally the Jap went away and Joaquin slipped out to Cor-
regidor with his information. He brought us word that the
Japanese were mistreating the Filipinos, confiscating the food,
and enforcing repressive measures. Filipinos who worked with
the American Army or Navy were being tortured and killed.
Three or four more times Joaquin slipped into Manila and
came safely back again, each time bringing reports of vital
importance to MacArthur.

The Battle of Bataan was especially intimate and personal
for young American officers like the tall dark lieutenant and
his blond companion whom I had met at Baguio. I never saw
those two again but I did meet scores just like them, young
Americans who had been lawyers and reporters and insurance
salesmen a few months before.

When our troops backed into Bataan there came a time
when they had to stop retreating and had to hold their posi-
tions. The young Americans had to go to every Filipino kid
in their outfits and pat them on the back.

"Hold everything, Joe," they'd say. "Those Japs aren't too
tough. Our help will be here any day now. You know me and

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you can trust me when I tell you that. Let's lick hell out of

Many of the noncoms in the U.S. 31st Infantry were given
commissions and assigned to duty with the young Filipino
troops. Under their steadying influence the youngsters not
only stopped retreating, but they learned to stand and hold
and finally they learned to attack. Give a Filipino a little edge,
just the slimmest chance of winning, and he is a tough soldier.

There was no doubt the Scouts were tough soldiers. There
was the Scout private you saw on the operating table in Base
Hospital No. 2 in the woods near Little Baguio. He was hor-
ribly shot up but he was grinning, smoking a cigarette out of
the corner of his lips, and asking the doctor how soon he could
get back and fight "those damn' Japs." The doctors and nurses
told us they could always tell when their patient was a Scout.
He would never show any signs of suffering or pain, never
whimper; never complain because he would be crippled or
blind for life.

Then there was General MacArthur, as he strode through
the woods of Bataan or paced tirelessly about on Corregidor.
MacArthur never allowed himself the luxury of letting down.
He always kept his shoulders back and his chin thrust forward
at a fighting angle. He always looked serenely confident, even
in the blackest moments. He spoke to privates, always with a
word of praise or cheer, as readily as he spoke to the members
of his staff. His hair grew long but his trousers retained their
crease and his shoes their polish. It was part of his personal
code to keep them that way.

There was MacArthur, a soldier and a man of culture, whom
some men hated because he was both prophet and poet and a
master of the English language; who could tell you the details
of every great battle in history; whose incisive brain and great
military knowledge should have been occupied in planning

them.

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great battles, massing hundreds of thousands of men and thou-
sands of tanks and planes to attack, not to defend, for Mac-
Artliur knew that wars are not won by defense.

MacArthur always thought in terms of offense. He would
say, *'I will take this company of men, and those three tanks
and that torpedo boat, and hit the Jap there." He never
thought, as some commanders did, in terms of what he might
lose.

Back on Corregidor there was Mrs- MacArthur, the general's
wife, and their son, Arthur, Mrs. MacArthur wore cotton-
print dresses and a crocheted turban. She and the general had
decided to die together, when the end came, and of Arthur,
they said, "He is a soldier's son." During the daytime Mrs.
MacArthur sat under a canvas shelter in the officers' mess at
the entrance to Malinta tunnel. She knitted and read and
chatted with the officers and men. The nurses came out to sit
and talk with her, and Mrs. Quezon, Mrs. Bewley, old Mrs.
Seals, the wife of General Seals, and the other women civilians
on Corregidor. Like the general, Mrs. MacArthur never let
down. She always had a word of cheer and encouragement.
She was one of MacArthur's finest soldiers.

I remember one day on Corregidor when I was caught far
from shelter when the siren screamed. Bombs were already
shaking the island as I ran down the long road to Malinta
tunnel. A car overtook me and stopped. Mrs. MacArthur
opened the door and invited me to ride with her to the tunnel.
By stopping, she had spent the precious couple of minutes
that might have meant the difference between her being
killed on the road, and reaching a place of safety.

I remember, especially, Captain Arthur Wermuth of the
57th Filipino Scouts and Corporal 'Jock" Yacob, who was
Wermuth's partner. Wermuth was already a legend among our
forces by the time in early February when I tracked him down

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during those mopping-up operations against the Japanese
landings on the west coasL A few days before, in similar fight-
ing, he had been shot through the chest, the bullet just missing
his lung and coming out through his back. Jock had been shot
at the same time, but the 6-foot 2-inch corporal had put Wer-
muth on his back and carried him out of range of the Jap
machine guns.

Wermuth was tough and competent, a veteran of life out-
doors. All his life he had spumed conventions and looked for
adventure. Many times his dislike of stifling forms and cus-
toms had got him into trouble, but now, in war, he had come
into his own. I had difficulty getting him to tell me his story
but when he finally did, checking his diary as he went along and
occasionally calling over one of his Scouts to refresh his mem-
ory, I remarked, **Art, Tm going to call you our 'one-man
armyl' "

His Scouts served us dinner of carabao steak, and we sat
afterward for hours and talked. It was obvious from their tone
of voice and their quick response to his orders that the Scouts
worshiped this heavy-set man with the black Vandyke beard
which he had grown since the war started.

The Scouts had followed Wermuth on a score of epic feats
of reconnaissance: the burning of Samal; an antisniper "sui-
cide" detail in which the Scouts cleaned out three hundred
Japs who had infiltrated our lines and tied themselves in trees;
a scouting trip on which Wermuth alone killed thirty Japs
with his tommy gun and the Scouts killed forty or fifty more;
several daring patrols behind Jap lines where Wermuth cap-
tured prisoners and brought them back alive; an attack with
hand grenades on a hidden Jap machine gun which had cut
down three Marines who went to the front lines with Wermuth
in search of excitement.

To the Scouts, Wermuth was a symbol of American boldness
and resourcefulness. He told them repeatedly, and he believed
himself, that help was coming; help in sufficient quantities to

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turn the tide and enable them to drive the Japs from their
homeland and return to the families which, of necessity, they
had left behind in Manila or in their native villages, at the
mercy of the Japs.

As we sat in the woods that night and talked Wermuth told
me: *'You know, I've been lucky. Three wounds and still walk-
ing around. I wouldn't mind being killed, but the one thing I
hate to think about is capture. If there is any way to avoid it I
will never be taken prisoner as long as I can shoot."

Ten months later the name of Captain Arthur Wermuth was
on a list of prisoners published by the Japs. Apparently, when
the end came in Bataan, he had nothing left with which to
shoot. Every minute of imprisonment must be a lifetime of
torture for him.

Another fighter like Wermuth, another one-man army, was
Lieutenant Roland G. Saulnier of New Bedford, Massachu-
setts. Everybody along his sector of the western Bataan front
knew "Lieutenant Frenchy." Frenchy's parents were French-
Canadians and he spoke English like a character in a play on
French-Canadians. When the war started he was a private in
the Army at Manila, in charge of pigeons. In the early fighting
in Bataan he suddenly found himself the only American with
a battalion of Filipino troops and he took command. For a few
days he was scared stiff, but then he discovered that he enjoyed
fighting, had a talent for it. He nursed his Filipino youngsters
along as a mother pigeon would her flock, slapping them on
the back, running to help in response to their frantic cries of
'Trenchyl Those damn' Japs are attacking!" He stopped the
Japs cold along his sector of the front, fighting with machine
guns, hand grenades, pistol, rifle and bayonet. And Frenchy,
too, assured his young Filipinos that help was on the way.

There were the boys of New Mexico's 200th, whom I met
the second night of the war and whom I visited on Bataan

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whenever possible to swap yams and stories of our experiences.
They quickly changed from green youngsters to experienced,
resourceful, anti-aircraft experts. Their physical appearance
also changed, shockingly, from the husky, healthy youngsters of
Manila to thin, sickly men with deep-lined faces. Just before
I left Bataan I went over to see Sergeant Joe Smith and the
Davis brothers and the other boys of Battery F. I wrote a story
about them and months later, through an editorial in their
home town paper, I learned that to many people in the United
States, also, tlie Battle of Bataan was not remote but highly in-
timate and personal.

The editorial in the Carlsbad Current- Argus, written by
Managing Editor Kenneth L. Dixon and entitled Letter to
Lee," said in part: "Yesterday, we carried your story about your
visit to the Carlsbad boys of 'first in spite of hell' Battery F.
You said all of them were alive and well. You said they were
having a tough time of it, but were cheery about the whole
thing.

^'Things are plenty bad on Bataan, and those boys' parents
here in this little Pecos River valley city know it. They aren't
kidding themselves. But you'll never know how much that
story pepped them up. It gave the whole town a shot in the
arm that won't quit.

''Now they know that their boys— our boys— were all right a
short time ago, anyway.

'Tou remember mentioning talking to Sergeant Joe Smith.
Well, his mother called up the office and she was so happy she
was nearly crying over the phone . . . You remember speak-
ing of the Davis brothers. Well, their dad, who is a photog-
rapher here, came running over to read the story before the
paper was on the press . . . He's still worried about the boys
but he knows they're still together and still okay— and man
alive, but that helpsi

''There's dozens of other cases all over town. It s all the same
story/'

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The nurses on Bataan were great guys. They dressed in
Regular Army khaki pants and shirts and lived under shelter
tents. They washed their underclothes and bathed in a muddy
stream that ran through Base Hospital No. 2. With the bomb-
ers overhead, they walked about the wards of their open-air
hospital, carrying out their duties and cheering up the Filipino
and American wounded. When the bombs fell near they
helped the shell-shocked patients crawl into foxholes dug right
under their beds. Twice, in the final horror-filled days, the
bombs fell— not near— but squarely on the hospital.

Some of the nurses who survived were taken to Corregidor.
There they lived for a month longer in the tunnel, while
bombs and shells rocked the whole island and frequently blew
out the electric lights while a pain-racked soldier was on the
operating table.

Since the fall of Corregidor, nothing has been heard of the
nurses. . . .

On Corregidor there was President Quezon, small and in-
tense. Most of the time he was in a wheel chair, gravely ill of a
tubercular condition that was aggravated by the dusty air in
Malinta tunnel. While his aides pushed his wheel chair along.
President Quezon would talk warmly and spiritedly of the
fight that the young Filipino soldiers were making. Frequently
he had to cover his face with a handkerchief, while his slight
body was shaken by coughs. He had told his people that they
would have to learn to fight and die, and he was proud of the
way they were learning.

Perhaps the man I shall remember longest, of those I knew
on Bataan, was a Filipino. He was dead when I saw him, with a
straight line of machine-gun holes across his chest. It was the
same day that I met Wermuth, and some of Wermuth's Scouts
had escorted me down to Saysain Point to watch the final mop-
ping up of the Japs there. Alongside the path through the

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jungle we saw the body of a Filipino in constabulary uniform.
He had been killed while fighting off a score of Japs. Other
Filipinos were digging a grave a few feet away. The face of the
dead man looked familiar, and I asked his name.

'*That is Sergeant Hilario Francisco, sir," one of the others
answered. 'Terhaps you knew him in Manila. He was fre-
quently on duty at the Manila Hotel.''

Then I remembered the night shortly before the war when
an American woman had slapped the face of Sergeant Hilario
Francisco and shouted at him, *Tou Filipinos are dirt."

I wished that she could have been there that afternoon, in
Bataan, when his fellow Filipinos shoveled the dirt into
Sergeant Hilario Francisco's newly dug grave.

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29

JXIGHT up to the day that Bataan surrendered, thousands
of our troops clung to the hope that help was on the way*

Even when the Japs broke through on the east coast and
their airplanes and artillery were pounding the main road and
the airfields, and General King was going forward under a
white flag to surrender, most of our troops didn't give up. They
walked back along the dusty road to Mariveles, now jammed
with wrecked or fuelless trucks and jeeps and artillery mounts.

They still hoped that by some miracle our planes would dive
out of the sky and check the advancing Japs and give us a
chance to reorganize at the last minute and start to win. Fail-
ing that, they hoped to get to Corregidor and hold there until
help came. For most of them Mariveles was the end of the
road.

On Corregidor, too, they held on to their hope to the last
day. All they knew, when the end came, was that help had not
reached them. They did not know, and would not have be-
lieved, that no help was going to be sent. Someone thought it
couldn't be done. . . .

Sometime shortly after December 8, perhaps immediately,
the decision was reached in Washington that the Philippines
could not be reinforced, even with airplanes, and that Mac-
Arthur and his men would have to do the best they could with
whatever they had on hand.

Some time in January it was decided that even though the
Philippines were lost some effort should be made to send medi-
cal supplies and ammunition to the forces holding out in
Bataan. Maybe if we had been in Washington we would have
seen the reasons for that decision.

Anyway, the decision was made and Brigadier General
Patrick J. Hurley, former Secretary of War, was called to

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Washington. The President told Hurley he had a job for him.

Pat said, "Mr. President, I thank you, sir, but no thanks. I'm
getting on in years and I did my part in the last war/'

The President told Pat that he needed him.

Pat said: **Mr. President, Fve got my plans all made for this
war. Way out in Arizona, in the mountains, I've found a nar-
row canyon between two rocks. And when I say narrow, I mean
narrow. It's so narrow that when I call my hound dogs from up
in that canyon and they come out to meet me, they have to
wag their tails up and down. There isn't space for them to wag
them sideways. Mr. President, I'm going to crawl up in that
canyon and stay there until this war is over."

The President told Pat that the job he had in mind wasn't
one that just anyone could do. What was needed was an adven-
turer, a man who loved to take chances.

Pat said: '*Mr. President, why didn't you say so in the first
place? Of course, I'll take the job."

So Pat took the job and also the funds that the President
gave him and got in an airplane and flew across the Pacific. He
went to Australia and flew up north to Port Darwin and then
over to Java.

Hurley chartered five ships and loaded them with .50-caliber
ammunition, hand grenades, 3-inch anti-aircraft shells, aspirin,
bandages, quinine and sulfanilimide, and some canned goods.
Two of the ships were lost near Darwin Harbor when the Japs
staged their first big raid of the war there, catching us by sur-
prise and inflicting heavy damage on a big convoy.

The other three all got through to the Philippines. That
meant that all three ships that started, made it. There may
have been other ships too, because Secretary Stimson, on the
basis of information given to him, announced after the fall of
Bataan that for every ship that got through two ships were
sunk.

Hurley mounted some .50-caliber guns on his three ships for
protection against dive bombers and got American soldiers to

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man the guns. The ships* crews were given bonuses, but it
would be unfair to believe that they made the trip in order to
make money. Nobody who saw die ships sail northward
thought the crews would live to spend their bonuses.

One of the three ships was the Anhwei, an old China coaster
which had brought British women and children to Manila
after the war started. It was commanded by British officers
whose families were in China, and the crew was Chinese. All
of them had personal reasons for wanting to do anything they
could to strike a blow at the Japs.

Another ship was the Dona Nati of the Philippine-owned
De La Rama line. Its officers and crew, with the exception of
the Swiss chief engineer, were all Filipinos, and they too had a
decided personal interest in trying to hold the Philippines. I
was told the third ship was the California Farmer.

The California Farmer ran through Macassar Straits, and
made it. The Dona Nati sailed from Brisbane and ran right
through the Japanese Mandated Islands, and got there and
back safely. The Anhwei steamed up through Molucca Straits,
and reached the Philippines.

Those ships made the trip just at the time when huge Japa-
nese expeditionary forces in transports and warships were com-
ing south through Macassar and Molucca Straits. Looking at a
map, you would say it couldn't be done. But it could be done,
and those three ships proved it. They proved that in war, as
in peace, the way to get things done is to go ahead and do them,
and not to say they are impossible.

While those ships were on their way running north to the
Philippines, MacArthur had already set up a * 'blockade-run-
ning" organization of his own. That organization functioned
because in the first three months of the war there was not any
fixed Japanese blockade of the Philippines. Occasionally the
Japs sent a warship into Philippine waters.

MacArthur had about a dozen ships which had been engaged

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in inter-island trade before the war and which had survived
the bombings. None of them was armed. The largest was the
Legaspi, a modern 3,000-ton passenger and freight ship. The
others ranged in size down to 70- and 80-foot motor launches,
but most of them were fairly roomy with three or four decks.

MacArthur sent one of the ships out through Corregidor's
mine fields one night late in January. It was the Don Esteban.
Two weeks later, with the Philippine Army's three Q-boats
guiding it, it came back into Manila Bay. It had been to Iloilo
and it brought back sorely needed supplies; rice and a little
fruit and some medicine.

Then MacArthur sent the Legaspi and it got through. Then
the Princesa made it.

When the first boats came back it was a tremendous uplift
to the morale of the men in Corregidor and Bataan. The re-
ports of what they brought were exaggerated. The arrival of
one small ship was enough to cause rumors that our convoy, at
last, had arrived. Soldiers at the Bataan front refused to be-
lieve that only one ship had come in.

Captain Arthur Wermuth got mad as hell at me one night
when I told him the truth— that a group of small ships which
had suddenly appeared in the bay between Corregidor and
Bataan was not a convoy but some vessels which had been
moved from the south side of Corregidor to escape shelling by
the Jap guns at Cavite.

When the Filipinos asked me about reports that the convoy
had come, Fd either evade the question or say, '*Sure, help is
coming." I thought Wermuth should know the truth, and
could stand knowing it. But he didn't want to hear it.

MacArthur's blockade-running was getting results, so he
sent Major Bird of the Quartermaster Corps down to Cebu to
arrange for transshipment of the supplies that he knew were
en route from Australia. Bird squeezed himself into the fuse-
lage of a P-40, which is strictly a one-man airplane, and the

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pilot pulled it off the Cabcaben runway one night and set it
down in Cebu two hours later. Bird worked with Colonel
Thomas Cook at Cebu.

The supplies from Hurley's ships reached Cebu but they
never got to Corregidor. The Japs sent a warship into the
Inland Sea and it sank all but about six of MacArthur's small
ships that they had missed on their previous raids, including
one carrying President Quezon's baggage. The Japs almost got
Quezon too, but he slipped through their hands on a PT boat
and got to Mindanao where he boarded an airplane for
Australia. One or two of our small ships were captured intact
by the Japs while their crews were ashore.

Later, two submarines went to Cebu to try to take some of
the supplies to Corregidor, but again it was too late. The Japs
by that time had finished their campaigns in Java and Malaya
and had come back to mop up the Philippines.

The submarines, however, had previously performed sev-
eral valuable missions in running into Corregidor. In all, at
least seven submarines made the trip between late January
and early May, when Corregidor finally fell. Fll never forget
the arrival of the first sub. Its trip was supposedly secret, but
word quickly spread with electrifying effect. It meant that we
still had contact with the outside world!

The sub tied up at the south dock on Corregidor and I went
down to talk to the sailors. They had been at Pearl Harbor and
the reports they gave us were far grimmer than the official an-
nouncements of damage. But they had good news too.

"Darwin is lousy with American soldiers," they said. "The
harbor is chockfuU of ships and they should be heading up
this way soon. There are so many troops there that they have
to ration beer. Only five thousand bottles are sold every day
and our soldiers stand in line for hours to get one. We've got
plenty of planes there too."

That sub brought in ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns.
Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly what our gunners wanted.

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They had requested a device to enable them to cut the fuses
on their 3-inch shells so that the guns would shoot high enough
to hit the Jap bombers. The old fuse cutters wouldn't do the
trick. Somewhere along the line the request got garbled and
the submarine brought not fuse cutters but more 3-inch shells.
It also brought .50-caliber ammunition, of which there was
plenty at that time.

Other subs came in from time to time. They brought sup-
plies and they took out a few fortunate people: Quezon and
his family and staff; Sayre and his group, some Navy officers,
and a number of Army pilots. One of them also took out
$2,000,000 in gold bars belonging to the Philippine Govern-
ment. The paper money on Corregidor was burned, several
million dollars of it, while soldiers and sailors looked on envi-
ously.

Hurley's three ships and those submarines represented the
only efforts that the United States made to get aid to the
Philippines, except for the bombing raid that MacArthur ar-
ranged after he reached Australia. That raid was really a salute
to the dead of Bataan who would have still been living if the
United States had not decided that the Pacific was a secondary
front.

Even months after that last raid MacArthur still did not
have the men or planes or ships in Australia to take the of-
fensive against the Japs. Those materials, as it turned out much
later, were going to North Africa^

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the heavy bombing ended, Sayre decided to move
back to his house on Corregidor and Mel and Annalee Jacoby
found another house near by. They invited me to share it with
them.

We would sit there at night in the darkness, watching the
flashes of our artillery up the east coast of Bataan and getting
ready to duck if the Jap guns on the south shore of Manila Bay
should open up against Corregidor.

From about the middle of February we had begun to discuss
plans for leaving the Philippines. I had made my arrangements
with Bulkeley while Jacoby was keeping in touch with the
Army officers operating the small ships running to the south-
ern islands and coming back with supplies.

We had two motives for wanting to leave. None of us wanted
to fall into Japanese hands there or anywhere else. We had
heard that Don Bell, the American radio announcer in Manila,
had been tortured and killed after failing to escape from the
capital. We had strong reasons to suspect that we would face
the same fate.

Our second reason was less selfish. By mid-February we had
learned that there was very little likelihood of reinforcements
being sent to Bataan. We began to suspect that Bataan was be-
coming an embarrassment to the military leaders in Washing-
ton: the longer it held the louder the American people were
clamoring that help be sent. And the government had no in-
tention of taking the risks involved in a major relief expedi-
tion. MacArthur's messages, when they were answered, in-
formed him of that fact.

We believed that if we could escape from the Philippines
and get to Australia and then fly to the United States, we might
be able to persuade the authorities that the battle was not yet

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lost. We might be able to convince them that MacAithur s
Army had become a veteran, tough outfit, full of fight and con-
fidence; and tell them that a few airplanes could make all the
difference in the world, and that given a little encourage-
ment the people of the Philippines would fight with us to the
death.

We wanted to convince them tliat, unless we proved to the
native populations of the Orient that the United States was not
buying time at their expense, there was grave danger that those
populations would turn against us and join the Japanese.

When the inter-island ships came in from the south we would
go down and look at them longingly, and watch the soldiers
unload sacks of rice and big bunches of bananas. It was ticklish
work, since the Jap guns at Cavite would shell the dock unex-
pectedly at almost any time of the day or night. Jacoby and I
were caught on the dock during a severe shelling on February
15. I spent a very unhappy hour in the water under the con-
crete pier while shells thudded down overhead or screamed into
the bay just beyond.

On the morning of February 22, Jacoby met me at the mouth
of Malinta tunnel. "Annalee and I are going out tonight," he
said. "You'd better come along.*'

"I'm supposed to go with Bulkeley," I reminded him.

"Yes," he said, "but you better check up on it. I hear there is
a possibility his trip will be called off."

I went over to the Navy tunnel and found Captain Ray, the
chief of staff. He was standing outside the southeastern exit and
watching an exciting artillery duel between the Jap guns at
Cavite and our guns on Fort Drum, the rocky "battleship"
fortress which lay a few miles to the south across the sparkling
waters of the bay. We saw salvo after salvo burst in the waters
around Fort Drum and sometimes hit on the "deck" of the
battleship. The shells hit before we heard the sound of the
guns. When the splashes had already subsided we would hear
the noise of the bursts.

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With the morning sun behind them it was almost impossible
to spot the flashes of the Jap artillery, but Drum's own guns
were firing back. It was a favorite pastime on Corregidor to
watch those duels between Fort Drum, Fort Hughes, or Fort
Frank and the Jap guns. We thought we were out of range. But
one day the Japs fired at Corregidor and from then on you were
always ready to hit the dirt when you walked or rode around
the Rock.

"Captain,'' I said. ''Bulkeley has told me I could go along
with him on his trip to China. Now there is a chance for me to
leave by another way. What is your advice? '

"You better go the other way," Captain Ray said. "Bulkeley's
orders may be changed, or the boats may be sunk or break
down, or they may be required for some other purpose."

I thanked him and found Jacoby, and together we made ar-
rangements to see MacArthur after noon. He received us at his
desk in the USAFFE tunnel.

"Do you want to go?" the general asked.

We told him that it depended on whether we could do more
good by staying than by going. The general refused to make
our decision for us, but as a resuh of what he said we decided
to take a chance on getting through.

MacArthur talked to us for more than an hour, as eloquently
and stirringly as ever. He discussed not only his own desperate
situation but the entire world picture. His heart was in the
Philippines, but his brilliant mind grasped the whole strategy
of the world struggle. He felt that there was not sufficient
understanding in Allied councils of the time element in the
Pacific or of the fact that we did not have unlimited time to de-
feat Japan.

He pointed out the futility of trying to defeat Japan by
^'blockade" and "attrition," now that Singapore had fallen and
Java was about to go. With the capture of those places Japan
would have all the raw materials and the bases needed for a

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war of blockade and attrition against us. He was disturbed but
he was not bitter. He was ready to face his fate like a soldier;
but, like an American soldier, he wanted to win— not to lose.

''Go armed while you are in the Philippines,'* the general
advised. "When you board a ship to leave the islands, if you are
fortunate enough to make connections, throw away your
khaki, your guns, passports, and all diaries and identification
papers. When you get to Cebu look up the names of some busi-
nessmen and learn enough about them so as to enable you to
assume their identity, if you are captured."

When he shook hands with us he said, "I hope you'll make
it. Say good-by to Annalee for me."

As we walked out of the tunnel we met an old friend. Captain
Smith n, who had brought us out to Corregidor from Manila.
He asked us to shake hands with two Filipinos, one very short
with a barrel belly and stiff gray hair, and the other younger
and slimmer. *'They are waiting to get a glimpse of Mac-
Arthur," the captain said.

In a few minutes the general walked out of the tunnel. Ca|>
tain Smith II was about to speak to him, but just then Mrs.
MacArthur came through the tunnel and the general took her
arm and walked away.

The two Filipinos were elated. '*I was so close that I could
have reached out my hand and touched him," the fat one said
in Spanish.

"Maybe, if the senora had not arrived just then we would
have had the opportunity to shake his hand."

"Don't be selfish," the elder replied. "We have been closer
to him than almost any of our countrymen."

I called the captain aside and asked him the identity of the
two men. "They are the captain and chief officer of the Prin-
cesa de Cebu, a small freighter that had made two trips through
the blockade." The Princesa de Cebu was the ship on which
we were to sail.

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MacArthur had given me credentials which read:

'^HEADQUARTERS.

UNITED STATES ARMY FORCES IN THE FAR EAST-
Office of the Commanding General. Manila, P. I."
**To whom it may concern:

"This will identify Mr. Clark Lee. Mr. Lee is a repre-
sentative of The Associated Press and has been accredited by
this headquarters.

**He is now traveling on a special mission with military
approval. All military organizations are directed to render
every assistance to aid him to his destination.

(sgd) DOUGLAS MacARTHUR,

Commanding General."
We spent the afternoon making final preparations. I wrote
some last dispatches and arranged for Dean Schedler to be
relieved from his duties in the Quartermaster Corps and to act
as our correspondent, which he did magnificently until his
exciting escape by airplane some six weeks later.

I took my typewriter and packed my razor and toothbrush
and the slack suit I had worn out from Manila in my little
canvas bag. Regretfully I gave away the souvenirs I had taken
from dead Japs in Bataan: the neat little .25-caliber **suicide
pistol" with a single bullet in its magazine; the .38 Luger; the
rifles, gas masks, fatigue caps, hand grenades, 37-mm. shell,
and the rest.

We were not supposed to tell anyone we were going, but it
was a difficult secret to keep. The Sayres had left in the past
few days and President Quezon and his party. We said good-by
to only a few people. Colonel Diller and Colonel Sid Huff took
us into a tunnel lateral where quarters had been fixed up for
Mrs. MacArthur and young Arthur. We drank a farewell toast
and pledged that we would all drink another one some day-
some place. Mrs. MacArthur came in and wished us luck. So
did Major Romulo and a few others.

I went down to the North Dock at six-thirty ready to go

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aboard the launch which was to take us out to the Princesa,
anchored midway between Corregidor and the southern shore
of Bataan. The Jacobys weren't there and nobody had seen
them. I hadn't liked that dock since the afternoon I was caught
in the shelling there, and I kept jumping from one foot to the
other, expecting to hear more shells coming over at any mo-
ment.

The Jacobys finally arrived and we piled into the launch and
headed out into the bay in the deepening shadows. The sun
was already down but the sky behind Mariveles was flaming
with color. I pointed out to the Jacobys one huge cloud that
looked for all the world like a gigantic four-engined bomber,
heading in from the China Sea over the southern shore of
Bataan. "Lets hope it s one of ours," Mel said. While we
watched, the winds scattered the cloud.

The Princesa de Cebu had already weighed anchor and was
steaming toward Corregidor at slow speed, keeping well clear
of the mine fields. We tied up alongside and clambered aboard
over the low railing onto an open deck. The ship was about
two hundred feet long with three decks in the forward super-
structure. The first-class cabins were under the bridge. Pigs
and chickens were penned on the long main deck, which was
open at the sides. With both her twin Diesels going wide open
the Princesa could make about ten knots.

As soon as we were aboard the captain directed the helms-
man to change course. ''Follow that torpedo boat," he ordered.
One of the PT's was waiting to lead us through the channel
in the mine fields, a course which was now thoroughly familiar
to me. The torpedo boat chugged slowly ahead, cutting her
speed to accommodate ours. She was too far ahead for me to
recognize the helmsman.

We found several other passengers standing on the side of
the bridge. One of them was Lew Carson of Shanghai. Lew in-
troduced us to the others who, like himself, had been working
in motor pools in Bataan after volunteering to drive supply

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trucks out from Manila. They were all English, with the ex*
ception of Charles van Landingham.

As we left the channel, there was a sudden spurt of firing
from the black slope of Mt. Mariveles. Red tracers shot out
from the shore and there was an answering line of tracers from
the sea. That was a bad sign. It looked as if our shore defenders
had spotted a Jap boat out there, only a few miles from us. But
maybe they were shooting at one of our own torpedo boats.
There were no guns on the Princesa de Cebu.

The Jacobys and I decided to sleep on deck and the boys
rigged up three cots for us, complete with sheets and blankets.
We put our life preservers by the side of the cots and went over
to sit by the rail. Corregidor's big searchlights were probing the
darkness behind us, keeping well away from our course.

"Well, here we go again," said Annalee.

We remembered then to tell Annalee one more thing that
General MacArthur had told us. When he shook hands with
us he had said, ''If you don't make it, don't feel badly about
having tried. I will fight as long as I can hurt the Jap, but un-
less we get reinforcements the end here will be brutal and
bloody/'

What he said had confirmed our own conviction that even
if we were dive-bombed and sunk, or machine-gunned in life
boats, or died of thirst on a raft, we would not regret having
tried to get through.

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IHE Princesa headed straight out into the China Sea for
about ten miles and then turned south along the coast of
Luzon. The last we saw of Corregidor was its giant searchlights
illuminating the waters north of us and shining on the jungle-
covered south shore of Bataan.

We had been under way for an hour when the sea around us
and the deck suddenly lighted up. We damned the searchlight
crews on Corregidor, thinking at first that they had turned a
light on us. Then we saw that the light came from the new
moon sinking into the sea to the west of us, silhouetting our
ship for any watchers on the coast. The Japs held several towns
along the shore in that area, and we had heard that they main-
tained nightly small boat patrols well out to sea.

We steamed outside of Fortune Island, with its circular
beacon still flashing. Since the war no one had been able to get
out to the island to turn off the automatic beacon and we
understood the Japs were using it for navigation up and down
the coast. We had also heard that Jap troops were occupying
the island.

About twenty miles down the coast there was a sudden bril-
liant flare of light from high up on the Batangas Hills. It was
directly opposite us.

"Holy horrors!'* Annalee exclaimed.

"Well, I guess that does it,'' said Jacoby.

We thought that the light must be a signal to a Jap warship
standing somewhere off the coast. The Japs had watchers on
the mountains of Cavite province overlooking Corregidor and
Manila Bay, and we guessed that we had been spotted.

I went up on the bridge and asked the captain. "That's noth-
ing to get excited about," he said. ''Just some farmers burning
off the rubbish from their land."

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The most ticklish part of the trip that first night was passing
through the Verde Island passage between Luzon and tlie
Island of Mindoro, which lay to the south. The straits were
only eight miles wide, with an island in the middle. We knew
that the Japs had stationed garrisons on both the Mindoro and
Luzon shores of the straits and probably on the island. For all
we knew there were torpedo boats or destroyers in the straits.
Even an armed launch would have meant curtains for us. Our
hull was so thin that a stream of .50-caliber bullets would have
sunk the ship.

When I awakened it was full daylight and we were heading
into the bay of Pola on the eastern coast of Mindoro. Tiny one-
man bancas skimmed the calm bay like water bugs, most of
them keeping well away from the ship. Finally one or two got
up enough nerve to approach and then the constabulary chief,
carrying a shotgun, came aboard. We ate breakfast on the ship,
enjoying fruit and eggs and bacon, things that we had not seen
in seven weeks in Bataan and Corregidor.

Ashore at Pola we went to the municipal headquarters and
paid our respects and then walked up to the schoolhouse on a
hill overlooking the tiny fishing village. We spent the day try-
ing to encourage the villagers, and to answer their embarrass-
ing questions about American help for Bataan.

We went back aboard the ship just before sunset and set our
course south westward. A few miles out a bright light suddenly
loomed up about two miles in front of us, and dien another and
another. We were all speechless except Van Landingham, who
sputtered, 'Jesus, %ve*re surrounded by Jap shipsi"

I felt my way up to the bridge and found the captain. "Just
fishing boats,*' he explained. "They fish with torches, using the
light to blind the fishes.'' We ghosted by the boats without
altering course. The fishermen must have been thoroughly
startled if they saw the outline of our vessel, for no large boats
had been in those waters since war started.

We landed next day at the port of Looc on the island of Tab-

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las and the following day at Estancia on the northeastern tip
of Panay, There Jap planes spotted us.

Van, Lew, and I had engaged a car to take us to the big town
of Capiz, some forty miles to the west, and while we were wait-
ing for the driver to change a tire, a couple of planes flew over.
We took cover in a ditch. The planes flew straight on.

When we got up and dusted off our uniforms we saw the
townspeople laughing at us.

"Why did you do that?" they asked. "Do you not know that
those are American airplanes?" We thought it kinder not to
disillusion them.

Driving inland a few miles we were amazed to see a tremens
dous airplane runway at the side of the road. Several thousand
Filipino men and women were at work, putting the finishing
touches on bunkers along the sides of the runway and in the
near-by woods. We drove out on the runway and found it all
but completed.

The town of Capiz seemed like another world to us. Along
the road we had given a lift to two girls, one of whom told us
she had won the title of **Miss Panay" in a beauty contest. They
were on their way to the hairdressers. We had forgotten there
were such things as beauty contests and beauty parlors. In
Capiz we bought newspapers from Cebu and Iloilo, chewing
gum, Coca-Colas, and even had our shoes shined. There were
plenty of automobiles on the streets and American signs every-
where. We went to a hotel and ordered an excellent five-course
luncheon. Some American naval officers in khaki came in and
we recognized each other from Corregidor.

The Navy officers had arrived a few days before on the inter-
island ship Legaspi. They were under orders to proceed to vari-
ous parts of the Philippines to inspect docking and shore fa-
cilities for the ships of our convoy, when and if it arrived.

Next morning we anchored off Barilli, on the west coast of
Cebu. Husky young Filipinos from the crew of the Princesa
carried us the last few feet to shore on their shoulders. We

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thanked the Princesas portly captain and the other officers and
said good-by. The mayor of Barilli met us in the palm-lined,
paved streets of the town. He began an enthusiastic speech of
welcome to the "reinforcements" for Bataan. One of the Eng-
lishmen interrupted him: **I say! We're not reinforcements.
We've escaped from Bataan." The mayor's face dropped a foot.

On smooth-paved roads we drove forty miles across the is-
land to the city of Cebu, on the east shore. With its sugar plan-
tations and fruit trees and homes with bright-colored roofs, the
island looked like the most beautiful place we had ever seen,
and the most peaceful. Cebu City seemed as big as New York,
even though it had only one five-story ''skyscraper" and most of
the stores were boarded up from lo A.M. to 3 P.M.— the likely
times of day for bombing.

We found Major Bird of the Quartermaster Corps in an air-
conditioned office down by the water front. He was young,
handsome, and efficient. He looked at the credentials Mac-
Arthur had given us and said, "Too bad you didn't get here
three hours ago."

"What's cooking?"

"An American freighter arrived at Mindanao three days ago
and is going out tonight to Australia. I just sent my launch over
this morning with a few people who are going aboard. If you
had been here I'd have sent you along."

"Is anything else coming in?" we asked.

"There should be another ship along sooner or later. I'll
keep an eye out for you. If it doesn't show up we'll try to get
you to Mindanao and maybe you can catch a plane from Del
Monte to Australia."

Major Bird invited the Jacobys to share his penthouse apart-
ment atop the skyscraper. A member of his staff, Major Clel-
land, told Carson, Van, and me that we could stay at the Liloan
Beach Club, fourteen miles north of the city. Bird furnished us
an automobile and driver. In a few days the Jacobys also moved
out with us, living in the clubhouse which was also our dining

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room while the three of us slept on the porch of a larger build-
ing. Liloan was a beautiful, palm-guarded beach, its white
sand stretching for more than three miles. It was also a likely
landing place for the Japs if they came to Cebu. . • .

We decided to stand watches at night, each of us taking two
hours. We reminded Annalee that it was still her honeymoon
and told her she didn't have to stand guard, but she insisted on
taking her turn. She and Mel sat up for four hours together
almost every night, whispering to each other while the moon
shone on the waters and the waving palm leaves. The moon
was coming up later and later every night and several times
we had real scares.

Three times, before the moon was up, we heard boats ap-
proaching across the bay We dressed quickly and got ready to
leave in a hurry. We had plotted several ways across the islands
in case the Japs came and had driven over the roads to fa-
miliarize ourselves with them. We hoped to dodge them when
they landed and get to some other island in a banca. Each time,
however, the boats turned out to be friendly fishing vessels.

In Cebu we met Colonel Irvine C. Scudder, commander of
the armed forces on the island, and his second in command,
Lieutenant Colonel Edmunds. Scudder was a sunburned,
white-haired southerner. He told us he intended to put up a
fight against the Japs when they landed, although his troops
had only fifteen hundred rifles and three machine guns.

A month later, Scudder and his men and their three machine
guns did put up a terrific fight when the Japs landed. The Japs
themselves admitted that, while bitterly complaining that the
American and Filipino forces had dynamited the stores in
Cebu and set fire to the city before retiring to the hills.

As day after day passed with no sign of any ship we began to
look around again for a small boat that looked capable of float-
ing long enough to reach Australia. Major Bird offered to send
us over to Mindanao in a launch to wait there, but we decided
against it.

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We passed the time swimming out at the beach, playing golf
at the Cebu Country Club, and sending wireless messages
through the RCA station that was still operating.

We had brought scores of messages from officers and soldiers
on Bataan and Corregidor to be sent to their families at home.
The Cebu stamp on those messages led to some misunderstand-
ings among the relatives of our troops in America, many of
them believing that the soldiers themselves had escaped from
the beleaguered peninsula and reached Cebu. In almost every
case the messages were taken to Cebu by some third party such
as ourselves, Major Bird, or the PT-boat officers.

One night we heard a rebroadcast of President Roosevelt's
February 22 speech in which he said the American Navy could
not operate in the southwestern Pacific because the Japanese
controlled those waters from their Mandated Island bases.
That worried us.

**If our Navy can't go there,*' I asked, '*how in hell is a ship
going to get in from Australia?'*

**And if it gets here," added Mel, ''how will it get back?'*

We estimated that the chances of a single ship getting
through were somewhat in the neighborhood of fifty to one. Its
chances of getting back again— of making tlie trip twice—
would be about one hundred to one.

Next morning we drove into Cebu to ask for news. As we en-
tered the city we detected an unusual amount of excitement.
We guessed that perhaps a Jap destroyer, which had shelled
the docks and oil tanks a few days before, had come back. Then,
across the park from Bird's building, we saw a big ship tied up
at the dock.

"By God," I said, "Look at the Queen MaryV
Jacoby was equally enthusiastic. "Whoopee," he exclaimed.
"That's it. Tm sure that's it. It has to be!"

"Sure enough, that's old one hundred to one," said Lew Car-

We drove over, parked, and walked out onto the dock. The

son.

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ship was painted gray, with the top of the masts a light blue. We
could make out the name, Dona Nati. All the American of-
ficers in Cebu were standing on the dock. A couple of American
soldiers were leaning over the railing of the ship, a 9,000-ton
motor vessel built in Italy for the New York-Los Angeles-
Manila run of the De La Rama line. We wanted to jump up on
the deck and shake hands with those soldiers. Instead we called
out, '*Hi, Joe, what's cooking?*'

The sergeant answered, "Nothing much. What's cooking
here?"

*'A11 quiet. You see any planes on the way in?"
**Not a one. We had a quiet trip."

We asked for magazines and newspapers. They threw us
down some old American magazines and some Australian pa-
pers. We saw by the dates on the papers that they had been in
Sydney, and more recently in Brisbane. So we knew they had
come from Australia.

"Many Americans down where you come from?" Mel asked.

"They're to hell and gone all over the place," the sergeant
answered. "Plenty of soldiers and plenty of planes—"

One of the American officers joined in. "Well, if you see
any planes around here, take a shot at them. All the planes
hereabouts are Japs."

Three days later, while Lew Carson was on watch at four
o*clock in the morning, a car pulled up in front of the Liloan
Beach Club. Lew challenged the approaching figures and or-
dered them to halt. But they kept coming. It was Lieutenant
Colonel Edmunds and his aide.

"Pack up your things and get going," Edmunds said. "Bird
sent me out here to tell you to come on into Cebu as fast as you
can."

We were on our way in fifteen minutes. We went up to Bird's
apartment and he gave us some breakfast. "I thought it best to
get you down here," he said. "The Dona Nati may be pulling
out this morning. I don't know yet. Anyway, stick around the

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apartment here until you hear from me/' We surmised that
he was not telling us all he knew. Lew and I went up to the
RCA to send a couple of last messages and then went back to
the apartment.

Bird returned about ten-fifteen in the morning. He looked
grim. ''Here's the score," he said. "A Jap cruiser is coming up
the coast, headed for Cebu. It is due here at noon at the speed
it is making. The Dona Nati is going. If you want to go, you
can. I'm going down to the dock."

At the dock we held a last minute consultation. Mel, An-
nalee, and I couldn't make up our minds. It seemed highly
likely that the cruiser would catch the Dona Nati a few miles
out of Cebu and our voyage would end abruptly. But while we
were talking we walked up the gangplank. The last boxes of
ammunition and canned food were being taken out of the
Dona Nati's holds.

A naval officer, a friend from Corregidor, shouted at us from
the dock. ''Don't be damn fools," he said. "Come down off of
there!" Then Bird shouted, "This may be your last chance."
We walked inside the ship and put our luggage in a cabin. It
looked wonderfully clean and comfortable. Then we went
back on deck, still undecided.

Bird yelled to us that he would send his Chris-Craft to follow
the ship. "Jump overboard in case they shell you," he said.
"The Chris-Craft will pick you up." We hollered at him to put
some life preservers in the small boat. There were no extra ones
on board.

The crew began battening down the holds but still the Dona
Nati did not cast oflE. We saw that Bird and the captain of the
ship were holding a long-distance bridge-to-dock argument.
"Where are my orders?" the captain yelled. "I will not sail
without my orders." "You already have your orders," Bird
shouted back. "Orders, bah. These are not orders." We found
out later that the captain's anxiety was justified. Bird had been
unable to get any definite orders regarding course and destina-

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tion from the Army at Corregidor, so he had just reversed the
orders under which the Dona Nati had sailed from Brisbane to
Cebu. The captain was worried about being sunk by our own
submarines unless they were notified in advance of his course.

By this time the forward lines had been cast off. The ship
started to drift away from the dock, turning on the stern line.
Another Navy officer rushed out onto the dock and yelled at us
across the widening space between ship and shore. **Hey, you
dopes, you better get off 1 The cruiser is only an hour away. If
you stay aboard you'll be shark bait by this afternoon."

Even then we considered going ashore, but it was too late.
The gangplank had already been pulled up.

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IHERE are two entrances to Cebu harbor, divided by a mile-
long island. The Jap cruiser was coming up from the south, so
the captain of the Dona Nati wanted to run out through the
north channel. At 10:50 A.M. he signaled with the bridge tele-
graph for full speed astern on the starboard engine. The stern
line was still tied to the pier, but they cast it oflE when we
backed into the channel.

Colonel Scudder, Major Bird, and the other Army and Navy
officers on the dock waved a hasty farewell and then ran for
their cars to head for the hills behind Cebu. They knew that
the Jap warship would shell the dock area, as well as the Dona
Nati.

There was no doubt in our minds that the Dona Nati had
priority on the Jap's target list. An observation plane had flown
over Cebu two days before and spent a long time making pho-
tographs of the docks. The promenade deck of the Dona Nati
seemed to be higher than the Empire State Building. From it
we could see cars and pedestrians in the streets of Cebu, all of
them going back up toward the hills.

Captain Pons tried to swing the Dona Nati around so it
would be headed out the north channel, but the wind caught
the empty ship and turned it back again each time. Pons ma-
neuvered backward and forward for more than thirty minutes.
Then he gave up and dropped the anchor. With the hook
down, the wind brought the stem around. Pons ordered the
anchor up and we steamed out through the north channel at
our full speed of thirteen and a half knots. With a normal load
the Doiia Nati would make fifteen knots, but there was nothing
in the cargo hatches now and there hadn't even been time to
pump in salt water ballast.

Jacoby looked at his watch as we headed out of the harbor,

282

D . y Google

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"It's just eleven-thirty/' he said. '*That cruiser is due here
at noon. At this rate it should catch us just about as we pass
that island at the entrance to the harbor."

I had already made a mental measurement of the distance
from the deck to the water. It was about forty-five feet from
the lower stem deck and about fifteen feet more from the open
deck space behind the first-class cabins. **If it catches us," I
said, "let's hop over and take our chances on getting ashore.
It will be better than getting blown up on board." The Chris-
Craft that Major Bird was sending as our "escort" vessel was
just pulling out from the dock about a half mile behind us.
There was not a sign of a cloud in the noonday sky, and no
hope of any fog to hide behind. The mountains of Bohol and
Leyte, far across the inland sea, were clearly visible.

We steamed out through the north channel, passing two
smaller and slower inter-island ships. Both of them were sunk
by the Jap cruiser that afternoon. We hardly dared look to
the south across the calm blue waters. The ship's crew went
about their jobs as if nothing was up. At noon they announced
lunch and we went down to the comfortable dining salon.
There was a large table in the center with eight places where
the American machine gunners sat and two smaller tables at
each side. The Englishmen who had come out of Corregidor
with us were already eating.

We turned east after leaving the harbor and within a couple
of hours the northwestern corner of Bohol was between us
and Cebu. There was no sign of the cruiser. We listened to the
Cebu radio station. At two-fifteen it went off the air and a half
hour later it came back on.

"News flash 1" said the announcer. "A Japanese cruiser
shelled the docks and water front section of Cebu from 2:25
P.M. until two-forty this afternoon. It has just left the harbor
and is speeding away to the southeast." The cruiser wasn't
following us. That meant that we had at least a breathing
spell.

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A half hour later the engines suddenly stopped. I ran up
to the bridge and found the captain, the chief officer, and the
American Army sergeant peering through glasses and con-
ferring anxiously. Someone loaned me a pair of binoculars
and through them I made out a camouflaged ship, lying mo-
tionless against the coast of Leyte. It was a big ship, its hull
painted in blotches of light and dark gray. Its masts were a
lighter color.

''That's no Jap warship," I told the captain.

"It might be a submarine tender," he said. Then he studied
it further. "Whatever it is, it has run aground between Bohol
and Leyte. The channel there is only a few hundred feet wide."

The captain decided that whatever kind of ship it was, it
certainly wasn't friendly. He rang for full speed ahead and
swung our course sharply to the northeast. "It looks like they've
got us," the captain said, "but we'll at least make a try at fool-
ing them. If they see us heading this way they will think we
are going to try to run through the San Bernardino Strait up
north of here. Possibly they will call off the cruiser."

At nightfall we dropped anchor off the tiny town of Ino-
pacan, on the east coast of the island of Leyte and about sixty
miles from Cebu. By that time we had hoped to be well on
our way through Surigao Strait. The captain sent a small boat
ashore in command of his chief officer, a wiry, handsome Fili-
pino who always wore a smile on his face and a shiny .38-caliber
pistol at his hip. In an hour the chief was back aboard with
good news.

"That is one of our own ships," he reported. "The British
freighter Anhwei which came up from Darwin with a cargo
like ours. It has been aground since yesterday."

We spent the next two days anchored off the coast of Leyte.
Each day Jap planes spotted us and all day we waited for them
to come back with dive bombers or to bring in a cruiser or
destroyer to finish us off. There were only two ways we could
get out of the islands— either through San Bernardino or Suri-

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gao Straits— both of them so narrow that a single warship could
patrol them effectively.

Shortly after noon on the third day Captain Pons turned
the Dona Nati south again and just before nightfall we came
abreast of the grounded Anhwei. We passed so close we could
see the Chinese crew on deck. A tiny launch flying the Amer-
ican flag chugged over to our ship and an Army officer climbed
up the swaying rope ladder. We recognized Lieutenant Tom
Jurika from Cebu.

"How about towing that ship off the reef?" he asked our
captain. Pons was willing to do everything possible, but after
a conference it was decided that it couldn't be done until
morning, so we dropped anchor for the night. At dawn Jurika
came aboard again and told the captain that lighters were
coming over from Cebu to unload the Anhwei s cargo, and
that after that she would be refloated by launches.

Just as we were pulling up our anchor a wobbly banca came
alongside. Its passenger was a reserve lieutenant in the Amer-
ican Navy, a Manila businessman named Green. Lieutenant
Green had a bad leg and he had the devil of a job climbing
the ladder to our deck. On his own initiative he had sent a
wireless message to Corregidor reporting that the Dona Nati
was leaving the Philippines and giving its course.

**That information will be communicated to all our fleet
units," Green said. "At least you won't be sunk by one of our
own subs or planes." Captain Pons thanked him sincerely.
That was one worry off his mind. Green probably saved us
from getting sunk a few days later.

We anchored that morning off the eastern coast of Bohol
and shortly after noon headed east again to run through the
Surigao Strait. That was the most dangerous part of the trip
up to then. The Japs held the northeastern tip of Mindanao
Island, on the southern side of the strait. We strongly sus-
pected that the cruiser that had shelled Cebu was lurking be-
hind one of the islands in the narrow waters.

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For luck, I sat on deck for a while with my fingers, elbows,
and knees all crossed. The Jacobys did the same. Up until then
Mel had always been able to crack a joke— no matter how bad
—in tight spots. But that afternoon he w^as wordless. At four-
thirty in the afternoon the captain pointed out to me the tiny
island where Magellan had first landed in the Philippines.
Shortly after we passed the island it suddenly began to rain.
That was the second time I had seen rain in nearly four months
in the Philippines. The first time, when I was trying to get
out of Baguio just before Christmas, it had been a decided
handicap. Now it was a godsend. Out of a clear sky dark clouds
rolled off the mountaintops on each side of the strait and soon
we were running through storms and heavy mists.

I stayed up until nearly midnight when I felt our bow begin
to bite into the slow Pacific swells. The days that followed were
not eventful, but they were not monotonous. Captain Pons
wouldn't tell us exactly where we were going, but we knew it
was Brisbane and we knew that we would have to run east be-
tween Japan's Caroline and Marshall Islands and the points
in New Guinea and New Britain where the Japs had landed.
Van Landingham had a compass, and Jacoby had a map, and
we were able to work out our course and daily position pretty

At dinner the night we were passing through Surigao Strait,
Jacoby and I got into an argument. I don't remember what it
was about, but it certainly wasn't anything important. We had
been together constantly for more than eight weeks without
ever a difference of opinion.

The argument got hotter, and one of us invited the other
outside into the passageway.

*Tou hit me first!" I commanded.

' I don't want to hit you."

"Go ahead. I can lick you even with one broken hand."
**Okay. If you insist."

well.

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He swung a left which caught me a good shot on the jaw.
We mixed it for about five minutes without doing any major
damage. Then we stopped and shook hands. Neither of us ever
mentioned it again and I never thought of it until after I got
back to Honolulu. There, time after time, I saw a pair of sail-
ors—just in from a long task force assignment at sea— pound
the devil out of each other, without anger, and then suddenly
shake hands. Those fights were an effective way of relaxing
tense nerves and expressing joy at being alive.

That first night out of Surigao, Captain Pons told me, *'The
eighteenth will be the most dangerous day. If we can get past
that and the next two days, we should be fairly safe." We had
left Cebu on March 8. Studying our map, we figured that on
the i8th we would pass tlie converging point for all the Japa-
nese shipping lanes from Truk and the other Mandated Island
bases to the Dutch East Indies and to New Guinea. On the
2oth we would pass within sixty miles of the furthest south of
the Mandated Islands, and between it and Rabaul, where the
Japs had set up headquarters on New Britain.

Hearing the captain talk about trouble on the iSth, we all
began to expect it. When the iSth finally came we stayed on
deck all day, watching the sea and sky. The unbroken circle of
sea around us had come to be all-important. As long as nothing
appeared we were reasonably certain to stay alive. Toward
afternoon we began to encounter scattered rain squalls. There
was a neat sign posted in the dining room informing us that
one alarm meant torpedoes, two, airplanes, and three, "surface
raiders.*' At four-thirty, the klaxon blared sharply three times.
I grabbed my life jacket and ran up to the bridge. The ship
was already swinging northward from our course, running for
a near-by rain squall.

''There are eight ships over there," Captain Pons said with
an air of finality. *'One seems to be an aircraft carrier, and the
others smaller warships." Within two or three minutes after

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we sighted them a black squall hid the ships from us and we
ducked into another squall, hiding until dark and then going
back on course again.

For four months I congratulated myself that we had given
a Jap task force the slip that day. In July, when I was traveling
on an American aircraft carrier to the Solomon Islands attack,
I told Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher the story. **I know all about
it," he grinned. **That was my ship, the Lexington. We had
been in to attack Rabaul. We knew you were there all the
time.'' Thanks to Lieutenant Green, I thought.

Over the radio we also heard the startling news that General
MacArthur had reached Australia. We were stunned and de-
lighted. Captain Pons put it into words for us: **That's the best
possible news for my country. If anybody can save the Philip-
pines, MacArthur can and will. These American soldiers on
board tell us there are many planes and men in Australia. Mac-
Arthur will lead them back to the Philippines."

We discussed the possible adverse effect on morale in Bataan,
and decided that the soldiers' love and trust of MacArthur was
such that they would interpret his leaving as Pons had done.

The next morning we ran into more trouble. About eleven-
thirty the lookout sighted three ships. They appeared to be a
tanker refueling two submarines. We put on our life jackets
and stood around on deck. I remember saying a prayer for the
second time since the war started. It wasn't much of a prayer,
something like, '*Oh, Lord, I know I've got to die sometime,
but please don't make this be it. It's too nice a day to die."

When we saw the ships Captain Pons immediately swung
his course from southeast to southwest. The Dona Nati was
making her full thirteen and a half knots so he couldn't speed
up. We lost sight of the ships. Cautiously Pons edged back on
course again. Again we saw the ships. The captain sent every
available man in the crew up into the masts and rigging. They
perched there tirelessly, clinging to the wires. We changed
course and lost the ships again. Pons steamed west for two

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hours, then north, then northeast and gradually back onto our
southeasterly course. By that time it was dark and we finally
lost sight of the vessels. Probably they were a couple of Amer-
ican destroyers and a tanker from the Lexington s task force.

By going off course we had lost so much time that on the
following day we had to pass between Rabaul and the Jap
Mandated Island in daytime, instead of at night as Pons had
originally planned. We watched intently all day without sight-
ing anything. From then on we began to relax. After the 20th
it was smooth sailing. We steamed east almost to Fiji, turned
south around New Caledonia, and then west through the Coral
Sea to Brisbane. We arrived there on March 30 after a trip of
twenty-two days from Cebu. As we sailed up the narrow river
to the port we passed many American ships and saw American
jeeps and trucks on the shore. We shook hands with each other
and exulted, "By God! The United States is moving. Now to
get started back to the Philippines."

We got a taxi at the dock and drove through wide streets of
what looked like an American city. We went to several hotels
and found them all filled. * 'American aviators/' the clerks told
us.

Finally we went to a small hotel, and while Lew Carson went
to the desk the Jacobys and I sat down in the lobby. I noticed
there were potted palms in the room and I suddenly remem-
bered something.

'Tou two have probably forgotten the hunch I told you
about on New Year s Eve," I said to the Jacobys. ''Fm going to
test your memory. Fll buy a drink. What'll you have?"

"I'll take a Tom Collins," Annalee smiled,

*'Make mine the same," said Mel.

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IHE American officers in Brisbane wanted to know some-
thing about the Japs, and I tried to tell what I had learned.

A few days before we sailed away from Bataan, MacArthur
had talked to Jacoby and myself about the Japanese soldier.

"The Jap/' he said, "is a first-class fighting man. These troops
facing me on Bataan may not be as good as the best troops in
the World War, but it would take the best troops to beat them.

"Their officers spend lives heedlessly, even for unimportant
objectives. The individual Jap is a fanatic. He will throw him-
self on a land mine to explode it and clear the way for others.
Or he will fling himself on my barbed wire and let those fol-
lowing him climb over his body."

I recalled to the general an interview which I had two
years before Pearl Harbor with Lieutenant General Masaharu
Homma, then commander of Japanese forces at Tientsin,
whose troops had blockaded the British Concession in the
North China port and stripped British men and women and
slapped their faces. I told Homma that the blockade appeared
to me part of a deliberate plan to drive the white man out of
the Orient; but he disclaimed any such purpose on the part
of Japan and denied responsibility for the inexcusable assaults
on Britons— blaming them on "gendarmes whom I am unable
to control."

Our talk touched Japanese- American problems and drifted
to the Philippines, where two years later Homma was to turn
up as commander of the invasion forces opposing MacArthur.
Homma said he hoped the United States would recognize
Japans "true mission" in the Orient and would not cut off
Japan's sources of needed materials. If the United States tried
to oppose Japan, then war was inevitable. Many Japanese, he
said, had considered it inevitable for years.

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"I think I understand your American psychology very well,"
he said. think that every American believes he can handle
any two Japanese soldiers. Is that not true?"

I replied, *'Well, we have our own ideas."

Homma went on, "I think I am right in my analysis. At any
rate, we are proceeding with this in mind and are prepared to
Jose ten million men in our war with America. How many are
you prepared to lose?"

MacArthur, at the time, and later Admiral William Halsey
as commander of our southwest Pacific naval forces, both gave
the only possible answer to Japan's willingness to fight to the
death for victory. They said, * 'There is only one way for Amer-
ica to win the war, and that is to kill Japs, kill more Japs, and
kill still more Japs."

I also recounted to MacArthur on Corregidor an interview
with Rear Admiral Kanazawa, whom I knew first as Japanese
Navy spokesman in Tokyo and later as naval attach^ in oc-
cupied China. Ten months to the day before Pearl Harbor,
Kanazawa had received Russell Brines and myself at his head-
quarters in Shanghai. After some preliminary pleasantries
Kanazawa pointed to a large map on the wall and outlined in
startling detail just what Japan intended to do if it became
"necessary" to fight the United States.

"America has a triangular defense system based on a line
from Alaska to Hawaii to Panama," he said. "It is generally
overlooked that Japan has a similar triangle running from
Yokohama to here—" he pointed— "and here." The last two
places were New Caledonia and Singapore; which were then
respectively French and British territory. That didn't bother
the admiral.

"If the United States attempts to take back one inch of terri*
tory which we have already taken or which we may be forced
to take in the future," he said slowly and seriously, "we will
put up an impregnable defense with airplanes, ships, and
soldiers.

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''We will fight inch by inch. We will fight to the last man.
We will make the cost in blood, ships, and planes so frighten-
ingly great that, we believe, America will eventually become
discouraged. The American people will decide that the cost is
not worth the gains. They will say that, after all, the Orient is
a long way off and perhaps Japan is the logical nation to govern
it. Then our war will be won."

The Japanese won the first part of their war in exactly five
months from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the surrender of
Corregidor. At a cost of certainly not more than 100,000 men,
a score of ships, and a few hundred airplanes, they smashed
three of the world's great fortresses, drove the United States,
Great Britain, and the Netherlands out of the Far East, and
conquered a vast and rich empire containing all the natural
resources needed to make Japan the world s most powerful
nation.

The Japanese won partly because they planned well and
struck boldly and fearlessly. Mostly they won because of the
indecision and slowness of the United States and our failure to
send more than token forces to the Far East. While they were
fighting on many fronts in the first months of 1942, and moving
troops and supplies over lengthy and unconsolidated lines, the
Japanese were wide open to attack at a score of points. But we
reacted too slowly after Pearl Harbor, Planes alone could have
held the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Wake Island, and
the Aleutians, just as later they were to drive back the Japs at
Midway and to hold Guadalcanal and Port Moresby.

Without planes the Japanese drives could not be stopped.
The Japanese Air Force was the decisive factor everywhere. It
turned the tide in the Philippines on the first day of war. The
sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales opened the way
for Malaya's conquest. Hong Kong and Wake Island were bat-
tered into submission by planes. The gallant Dutch Air Force,
with its antiquated planes, was shot out of the air in a few days.

With air control established, the Japanese Air Force oper-

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ated like a smooth, first-class machine. Aerial co-ordination
with ground troops, the result of long practice in China, was
extremely effective. Their Zero fighters flew circles around our
P-40-B's, our old Brewsters, and even British Hurricanes at
Singapore.

Their Army and Navy worked perfectly together, A few
months before they went to war the Army and Navy had been
at loggerheads as a result of their long-standing dispute over
whether they should strike first to the north, against Russia,
or to the south. In Shanghai just before the war this bitter feel-
ing exhibited itself in the form of bloody fighting between
elements of the Imperial Army and Navy, and in the exchange
of open insults between Army and Navy officers, even in the
presence of foreigners. But when the crucial moment came,
when the final decision was made, the bitterness was forgotten
and the Army and Navy worked perfectly together as a single
team.

From the technical point of view the really amazing feature
of Japan's campaigns was the thoroughness and perfection of
their preparations. They worked out their logistics problem,
the problem of supply, perfectly. Every foot of space in every
ship must have been utilized in the most effective way possible.
When their troops reached an invasion point their reserve am-
munition and trucks, gasoline and oil, food and spare clothes
were right there with them. As the Air Force moved southward
from base to base, cargo ships brought along the bombs, fuel,
ammunition, spare parts, and portable mechanical shops
needed to put the planes into instant operation. Of course,
there was very little opposition to any of the Japanese landing
operations, but even so the planning was remarkable.

The entire Japanese plan was a desperate gamble but every-
thing, everywhere, broke right for them. Their audaciousness
paid great dividends. They were gambling that their attack
on Pearl Harbor would paralyze the U. S. Navy long enough
to give them time to conquer Southeastern Asia, and their caL

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culations proved correct. They gambled that they could knock
out our Air Force in the Philippines, and in Malaya, and they
won. They believed that we would be too slow in sending
planes to reinforce the Netherlands Indies and Singapore, and
they were right. They caught our planes on the ground again
and again, in the Philippines and Malaya and even in the
Indies. They used the element of surprise to the utmost.

In addition they knew every foot of ground they were to
fight over. Through the years their spies had laboriously gath-
ered all the information they needed. They knew what type
of clothes and what arms and equipment to use in the jungles
of Malaya and the mountains of southeastern Luzon. They
knew what tactics to use to confuse our troops and terrorize
the civilian population.

Soldier for soldier, our troops proved themselves better than
the Japanese. In Bataan our Filipino and American troops
killed an average of five Japs for every fatality in our forces,
and sometimes as many as seventeen or twenty to one. These
figures were later equaled by our Marines on Guadalcanal.
What made the Japanese tough foes was their refusal to sur-
render.

It was costly and difficult to rout them out when they dug
themselves in in the jungle; and in headlong assaults on our
front-line positions they would keep coming and coming, dis-
regarding losses, until they overwhelmed our defenses.

The twenty-five hundred Japanese who died in January and
February in the unsuccessful effort to crack our Bataan fiank
were perhaps typical of the first soldiers that Japan sent to the
Philippines. They were members of a regiment recruited in
the Kansai district of Japan, the industrial cities of Kobe and
Osaka, and the near-by ancient capital of Kyoto. Their ages
ranged from 21 to 24 years— compulsory military service in
Japan starts at the age of 2 1 . They had never been on duty in
China and when they came to the Philippines they had been
told they would have a quick, easy victory and would not meet

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any American troops. They had been trained thoroughly as
both infantry and artillery units.

We took some ninety prisoners out of the whole twenty-five
hundred, and most of those were too seriously wounded to go
on fighting. Perhaps that number is too small to permit any
conclusions regarding the health of the whole regiment. But in
any case four out of five of the prisoners were suffering from
some chronic disease, usually venereal. When captured their
physical condition was poor, due to lack of food and water, but
most of them were husky and well built, approximately 5 feet
3 inches tall and weighing around 115 pounds.

Many of the first Japanese troops to land in the Philippines
were reported to be youngsters in their teens, but in this con-
nection it must be remembered that it is extremely difficult for
a non-Japanese to tell the age of a Japanese. There were also
reports of women among the Japanese. There is no doubt that
there were some girls with the Japanese forces and that on
occasion they were seen carrying rifles and machine guns, pos-
sibly to give the men a rest or possibly to preserve the weapons
of soldiers who had been killed.

In China, as I had personally seen on many occasions, women
camp followers traveled with the Japanese forces. A certain
number of women were assigned to each company. In making
provisions for accommodation and travel, arrangements were
always made for the women, many of whom were Koreans. On
occasion, the women had been known to fight but their main
role was that of prostitutes. It is not unlikely that the women
seen with the Japanese troops in the Philippines were there for
a similar purpose. However, some of the women may have been
nurses.

I talked to one American, formerly a member of a tank crew,
who told me that he had seen many women soldiers in the
Lingayen Gulf area. He said that one afternoon, when he was
in one of six tanks defending a bridge, large forces of Japanese
charged down the road and at the tanks. The road was quickly

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heaped with bodies, and still the enemy kept coming. When he
was changing ammunition in his machine guns, a large group
succeeded in approaching close to the tank, ''They suddenly
threw down their rifles and tore open their blouses. I dis-
covered that they were women. I was so horrified at the thought
that we had been slaughtering women that I passed out there
in the tank." Subsequently he was transferred to other duties
and he was serving as an M.P. in Bataan when I met him and
heard his story.

With some exceptions, the Japanese equipment was not as
good in quality as ours. Their chief infantry weapon was the
.25-caliber (7.7-mm.) rifle, which had a higher muzzle velocity
than the American Springfield or Enfield, but was about seven
inches longer and more clumsy to handle. Snipers had a finely
made, short carbine. Many of the Japanese carried a sub-
machine gun of .25-caHber which fired a clip of twenty shots
and was effective at short range. The heavy Japanese machine
gun, slightly larger than our .50-caliber, was operated by a
crew of three. One soldier carried the gun lashed to his back.
In action he would fall on his face and the second man would
aim and fire the gun while the third fed the clips. This gun
had one feature which none of our officers had seen before, a
device which dripped a drop of grease onto each bullet before
it was fired.

The Japanese made effective use of a finely manufactured
grenade thrower which the soldier carried with ease and which
fired projectiles for distances up to seven hundred yards. The
projectile could also be used as a hand grenade. Some of their
infantry carried flame throwers, while anti-tank units were
equipped with a discus-shaped grenade which was hidden on
the dust-covered roads of Bataan or thrown against our tanks.
They also used gasoline-filled beer bottles, with a short fuse,
as an anti-tank weapon. Some of the beer bottles had been
taken from the Japanese brewery in Manila.

From the equipment which I took from the bodies of Jap

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snipers, and which some of our soldiers picked up, I compiled
a list of the gear which these "one-man supply trains ' carried
on their missions behind our lines. We estimated that each
sniper could fight for two weeks or longer, provided he could
get water from the countryside.

The equipment included: a rifle and ammunition, a gas
mask, a green combination mosquito net-camouflage hood
covering helmet and shoulders, a green, corded net to camou-
flage the rest of his body, a black wire eyescreen to protect him
from sun glare; a coil of rope for climbing trees and tying him-
self to branches. There were also a sack of rice, a small bag
of hardtack, a half pound of hard candy, a package of concen-
trated food, a can of field rations, small can of coffee, vitamin
pills, quinine, stomach pills, a can of chlorine to purify water,
a mess kit and canteen. Also an antidote for mustard gas, roll
and triangular bandages, toothbrush, spare socks, gloves, and
a flashlight with varicolored lenses. All this was neatly stowed
away in a small pack carried on the back.

Spare lenses for the eyeholes of the gas mask included some
especially made for use in subzero weather, which indicated
that the equipment was originally intended for use in North
China or Manchukuo. Some of the Japs wore heavy woolen
shirts and leggings, and many carried fur-lined packs which
were never made for use in the subtropics, but the majority
had clothing and equipment suitable for the climate.

The smallest Jap field artillery piece was a 37-mm. gun.
They also had 88-mm. and 105-mm. guns in Bataan, most
of them apparently mounted on wheels and drawn either by
horses or by the soldiers themselves. The Japanese supposedly
got both the 88 and 105-mm. guns from the Germans. The
artillery work was excellent, partly because of the advantage
of aerial observation. Their 105 had as great range as our own

155-

The Japs were well drilled in the tricks of jungle fighting.
One of their favorite stunts was to toss firecrackers into the

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trees some yards from one of their machine-gun nests. The
exploding firecrackers resembled the crack of Jap rifles. When
our soldiers went over to investigate, the hidden machine gun
would cut them down. The Japs also threw firecrackers in
night attacks to confuse our troops and create the illusion of
strong forces. Some of the Japs wore pads on their hands and
knees to enable them to creep stealthily through the under-
brush.

In charging our positions the Japs would shriek what they
imagined to be blood-curdling yells, interspersed with such
English words as ''ASSAULTl" and ^'ATTACKl" They infil-
trated our lines wherever possible and then split up into
groups of two or three men who climbed trees and sniped at
our officers, or attempted to approach our behind-the-line
camps where they threw grenades and tried to create confu-
sion. They took the uniforms from our dead soldiers, espe-
cially the Filipinos, and tried to pass our sentries at night.
They were very clever at lying quietly in the brush until they
learned our password and then imitating it. This trick worked
until our officers discovered that the Japanese could not pro-
nounce the letter L. After that our passwords were liquid
with L's— words such as "Hula-hula." The Japs invariably
pronounced that as **Hura-hura/' It was a dead giveaway.

In fighting at close quarters the Japs would quickly learn
the names of some of our officers, and also attempt to imitate
the voices of those they heard most frequently. They tried
this on Commander Frank Bridget during the fighting at
Langoscawayan Point. He was coming down a path alone and
he called out to Colonel Fry, commander of tlie 57th Filipino
Scouts, who was somewhere up ahead. '*Where are you. Colo-
nel?" "Down here, Frank. Come down here!" Bridget had
just seen the colonel going in the opposite direction so he
refused to be fooled. The Jap who shouted was killed a few
minutes later by the Scouts.

The Japs were vicious and cruel when they had the upper

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hand. I saw the body of one American officer. He had been
suspended from a tree limb and bayoneted repeatedly in the
back and buttocks. Then his arms and legs had been hacked
off. One group of thirty-five Filipino Scouts were found lying
face down in a stream. Their hands were tied behind them
and then they had been bayoneted in the back and left to
drown. Other Scouts were hung from trees while still alive and
then bayoneted.

When they were captured the Japs became meek and docile.
They seemed small and ineffectual without their rifles and
sometimes without their clothes, which they had removed in
the hope of swimming to the safety of their own lines. Talking
to the prisoners I became more than ever convinced that the
Japs are not supermen. The prisoners admitted they were glad
to be alive and did not regret their failure to die as heroes.
They admitted that they had been terribly frightened when
they first came under artillery fire— so frightened that at Lan-
goscawayan many of them jumped off a cliff to their deaths
rather than stand up under the fire of Corregidor's 12-inch
mortars. They told us that when a Japanese unit was cut off,
the officers would almost always commit suicide. They wanted
to die quickly rather than fire their last bullet at their enemies
and then await the suspense of being killed.

Japanese army units, as I had learned in China, are desig-
nated by the name of their commanding officer: the Kawasaki
regiment, the Tada company and so on.

In action and under fire, the discipline of the Japanese
Army is generally good. But when Japanese troops are not
fighting they are hard to control; especially if they have been
drinking. They drink badly, and after one or two glasses of
beer they frequently become surly and unmanageable. While
traveling with the Japanese Army, Harry Brundidge, then of
the St. Louis Star-Times, and I narrowly escaped death twice
in one day at the hands of Japanese soldiers.

A drunken private grabbed an officer's sword in a restau-

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rant in Taiyuanfu, capital of Shansi province in North China,
and threatened to cut our heads off. Captain ''Baroness" Ta-
kada, who was our escort, managed to disarm him only at the
risk of his own life. Later that evening, while we were return-
ing to our hotel, a Japanese soldier thrust his bayonet at Brun-
didge's stomach and when I objected pointed it at me. I still
don't know how we got out of that situation.

On another occasion, at a party given by Japanese Army
officers for foreign correspondents, I saw a major draw his
sword and swing wickedly at the head of a British newspaper-
man. The reporter saved himself by grabbing a chair and
thrusting it in front of him. The sword cut cleanly through
two legs of the chair.

The outstanding example of Japanese indiscipline— or at
least that was the official explanation given by the Japanese
Army— was the rape of Nanking. For more than two weeks
after they captured the Chinese capital in December, 1937,
Japanese troops roamed unchecked through the city, raping,
murdering, and burning. In China acts of brutality by Japa-
nese soldiers were commonplace, and when protests were
made the Japanese officers always replied that they were un-
able to control their troops. Apparently for the sheer love of
brutality Japanese soldiers would club unarmed Chinese, kick
a basket of food out of the arms of an aged Chinese woman, or
slap faces without provocation.

In the case of the Occidental, Japanese cruelty was more
deeply rooted. The Japanese have been taught that Americans
and Englishmen are enemies who threaten the existence of
their country, and that it is their sacred duty to drive them
out of the Orient. The Japanese humiliate the white man
wherever possible, by every means from small annoyances be-
fore the war to the outright murder of unarmed Canadian
troops in Hong Kong after the capture of that British strong-
hold. This is part of a deliberate program to impress their
fellow Orientals with Japan's strength. Until it is completely

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disproved, I believe every tale of Japanese brutality that is
told. The Japanese with a rifle and bayonet is a vicious, dan-
gerous animal •

In discussing the bravery, fighting prowess, and morale of
the Japanese a distinction must be made between the armed
members of the military forces and the average civilian at
home.

I do not believe every Japanese is a hero. Their politeness
is a form of cowardice. It is a throwback to the days when the
Samurai war lords roamed the highways of feudal Japan and
any commoner who failed to bow his head would have it cut

The Japanese lack a sense of humor. They also lack imagi-
nation, and in war that is to their advantage since they deal
only with immediate problems and do not worry about what
may happen to them individually in the future. I have flown
with Japanese Army pilots in many tight places. Once we
were trapped in a storm in the mountains of North China.
The clouds were down below the summits of the mountains
and we were forced to fly down a narrow river canyon, bank-
ing frequently to keep from crashing against the sides. Every
foreigner on the plane was worried sick, but the pilots simply
kept going until we flew through the storm and out over the
plains of Hopei province. They had not sufficient imagina-
tion to be worried.

Despite their love of children and their superficial culture
—their art, their neat homes, cleanliness, imitation of Western
living— the Japanese are primitive people, with the strength
and weakness of primitive people. One of their weaknesses—
and this applies to the civilian populace— is their tendency to
panic, their blind dependence on superior authority, and their
confusion when confronted by a calamitous situation such as
an earthquake or tidal wave, or even by some minor upset in
their routine of life.

I believe that when our big bombers can cruise over the

off.

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Japanese islands night after night, spreading death and fire
and bringing the horror of war home to the islands them-
selves, there will be such widespread terror and panic as to
seriously disrupt the life of the country, now devoted almost
exclusively to feeding the Imperial war machine. Soldiers
may have to drive civilians to work at bayonet point.

There is no reason to believe as yet, however, that even a
series of serious defeats will break down the morale of Japan *s
armed forces. Possibly one crushing blow after another might
produce such an effect; but from all the evidence in the first
year of war it seems more likely that the Japanese will fight
vigorously and unflinchingly until an overwhelming weight of
steel and explosives smashes their ships, shipyards, and muni-
tions factories, and completely destroys their power to resist.

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We LEARNED soon after our arrival in Brisbane that
the United States was fighting the Pacific war with only one
hand, and that the day of the final destruction of Japan's power
was still far off.

In reaching Australia we had achieved one of our two pur-
poses in leaving the Philippines. We had come through with-
out getting killed or captured. The other reason, our unoffi-
cial mission to try to get help for the defenders of Bataan,
was no longer valid. Mac Arthur was in Australia and we knew
if it were humanly possible he would organize a counteroffen-
sive and strike back. I thought of going home, but The AP
cabled: "Desire Lee join Australia staff.'*

We flew from Brisbane down to Melbourne to see MacAr-
thur. Mel and Annalee slept most of the way, but for me that
trip was the beginning of a nightmarish series of airplane
rides. I developed a severe case of altitude phobia. I had first
experienced it several months before when flying in a Japa-
nese Army airplane from Hankow down to Shanghai. Suddenly
I felt conscious of the distance from the plane to the ground,
and it seemed every second that the bottom of the plane was
going to drop out or the wings fall off. At any altitude above
five thousand feet I had that feeling.

Now, flying over friendly territory in Australia in a sturdy
twin-engined Douglas, the sensation came back in aggravated
form. Perhaps it had been heightened by my experience in the
Philippines. Perhaps I was slightly "bomb-happy" from near
misses on Corregidor. At any rate, the feeling has persisted
ever since and the scores of hours that I have ridden at high
altitudes in transport planes have all been unplesisant.
Strangely, when flying in combat planes with a parachute at-
tached to me, I have had no sensation of uneasiness.

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I thought that trip to Melbourne would never end. But it
finally did and General MacArthur received us at his head-
quarters. He shook hands cordially. **I am glad you made itP'
he said. Then he told me about his own trip with Lieutenant
Johnny Bulkeley, **that bold buckaroo with the cold green
eyes/' who had brought the general and his party safely to
Mindanao, where they boarded bombers and reached Austra-
lia. He also told us Captain Pons of the Doiia Nati had been
awarded the D.S.C.

MacArthur talked about the chances of defending Austra-
lia if the Japanese continued their victorious surge farther
south, past the Netherlands East Indies and New Guinea. The
chances didn't look too good.

He advised me to remain in Australia for at least a month—
until April 30. '*By that time," he said, '^either Til hit the Jap
up in New Guinea, or he will hit me, or there will be a stale-
mate." As events turned out MacArthur didn't have anything
to hit the Japs with. The Japs attempted to hit him early in May
when they sent a vast invasion force down into the Coral Sea,
heading for either New Guinea, northern Australia, New
Caledonia, or New Zealand. They ran into the Battle of the
Coral Sea.

MacArthur confided that he was going to make one last ef-
fort—with the limited forces at his command— to give help to
his troops in the Philippines. He told us that he was planning
an air raid against the Japanese besieging Bataan and Cor-

I asked permission to go along with the ten B-25's and the
three B-17's which were to make tlie flight, but my request
was turned down. All the space on the planes would be needed
to bring out Army fliers, Navy torpedo officers, and others
stranded at the Del Monte field in Mindanao.

A week after I reached Australia the news came through that
Bataan had fallen. With shoulders back, but with an ache in
his heart, MacArthur issued his memorable statement:

regidor.

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"The Bataan force went out as it wished— fighting to the
end of its flickering, forlorn hope. No army has ever done so
much with so little. Nothing became it like its last hour of
trial and agony. . .

MacArthur went ahead with his plans to raid the Japs.
Brigadier General Ralph Royce led the bombers up to Min-
danao, from where they pounded Jap shipping at Davao and
Cebu.

Three of the bombers raided Nichols and then flew over
Corregidor, which was still holding out although Bataan had
fallen less than a week before. Many an American and Filipino
on Corregidor said a prayer of thanksgiving as he saw the blue
and white stars on the wings of those big planes. The soldiers
ran out of their foxholes and tunnels, ignoring the Jap shells,
and cheered. "This is it,*' they exulted, clapping each other
on the back. "Help is here at last."

But help wasn't there. That raid was actually the last gasp
in our efforts to save Bataan. I believe that when MacArthur
left Corregidor in mid-March he thought that in Australia he
would find men and guns and planes, and the ships needed to
take them across water to counterattack the Philippines or at
least to hit the Japs somewhere in the southwest Pacific.

Twice MacArthur was ordered to leave the Philippines to
take over as supreme commander in the southwest Pacific,
which sounds like an all-inclusive command but actually in-
cluded only limited areas west of a certain meridian. The third
time MacArthur could not, as a soldier, ignore his orders.
When he left Corregidor he said to General George Moore,
commander of the fortress: "Hold the fort, George. I'll be

When he got to Australia the first thing he said was, "I have
left the Philippines and I shall return ... I shall keep the
soldier's faith."

The vast army of men and ships that MacArthur expected to
find in Australia wasn't there. The best he could do was to get

backl

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together those ten B-25's and three B-17's and send them up to
the Philippines to make that last raid. The very presence of
those B-25 s in Australia was the tip-off regarding our policy in
the Pacific, Those bombers had been bought and paid for
many months before by the government of the Netherlands
East Indies. They were delivered not to the Netherlands East
Indies, but to Australia, three weeks after the Indies had fallen.

MacArthur, pacing in his headquarters in Melbourne, was
the same MacArthur who had paced the dusty road outside
of Malinta tunnel on Corregidor, ignoring the dive bombers
overhead. The cards were still stacked against him. He knew
the necessity for quick, powerful action to hold the Philippines
and to prevent the Jap from building a solid circle around
his Asiatic conquests. He knew that the one way to defeat
Japan was to kill Japs. Now he had no way to get at them.

When he reached Australia he had said, **I was sent here,
as I understand it, for the purpose of organizing an offensive
against Japan. . .

We soon discovered that MacArthur not only did not have
sufficient forces to start a counterattack against the Philippines
or to hit the Japs in the Dutch East Indies, but perhaps not
even enough to defend Australia. A high-ranking Australian
officer told me, ''Australia, like the Philippines, is expendable
in terms of global strategy."

In Australia there were some planes, but only a relative
handful. It took me several weeks to reach the point where I
could hear the sound of a high-flying airplane without a shiver
of apprehension. For such a long time all the planes I had
heard had been hostile. On the ground our planes looked
wonderful, even if they were usually lined up in straight rows
on the airfields. There were some P-40 s and P-39's, and some
of the fast attack planes we had heard about, some B- 1 yE's, with
twin machine guns in the tail, and some medium bombers.
It is fortunate that the Japs did not know how few there were.

There were American troops, too, in the streets of all the

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big cities and in camps scattered around the country. These
Americans looked the way American soldiers should, well fed,
well equipped, healthy— not starved and sick and wounded like
the Americans and Filipinos in Bataan. There were trucks
and tanks, jeeps and bulldozers, all of them evidence that
America was on the move and starting to mobilize her mighty
strength.

Supplies were coming in. We went to the soldiers' canteens
and bought cigarettes and candy and all the things that, in the
Philippines, had seemed part of another world. There was
plenty of bustle and movement.

But in the Philippines we had learned not to be deceived
by appearances. Manila s defenses had looked strong, but the
Japs had knocked them out in a hurry. It looked like Austra-
lia might be another case of too little, too late.

Even in organizing the defenses of Australia, MacArthur
had difficult problems. The first was the shortage of men and
supplies, especially airplanes. That was to be remedied in
time. Another was that although Australia had agreed to Mac-
Arthur as supreme commander he could not get any official
orders from Washington and had no official authority. News-
papermen in Australia sat on the story for nearly a month
after MacArthur's arrival. Finally they cabled it home. Wash-
ington stories inspired by the reports from Australia quoted
government leaders as saying there were no complications or
troubles. In about a week after the Australia stories, Mac-
Arthur s directive came through. The reason for the delay
was never explained.

MacArthur's command was designated as the southwest Pa-
cific area which was bounded by a line running between New
Zealand and Australia and through the eastern Solomon
Islands. East of that line the American Navy was to command.
No explanation was given of this division of command, but
one of the reasons obviously was that the job of safeguarding
the supply lines to Australia and New Zealand was up to the

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U. S, Navy. If that was the sole reason the division of command
was justified. Within his own area MacArthur had command
of all land, air, and sea forces, the latter consisting of a few
American and Australian cruisers and lighter ships.

MacArthur's relatively small forces were being strengthened
by the return home of Australian veterans who had served
in Africa, Greece, Crete, and the Middle East. Every man
made a difference, for Australia had nearly stripped herself
of fighting man power to answer the call for defense of the
British Empire against Hitler. Now, with Japan looming over
the horizon and their own country threatened with invasion
for the first time in its short history, the Australians had been
forced to call on the United States to assist in its defense. The
Empire system had failed Australia in its hour of need and
that was an eye-opener to the people of Australia.

To all Australia's protests against inequalities in the Im-
perial economic system the English answer had invariably
been: Where would Australia be without the British Navy
to guard you?*' Now, in April of 1942, Australia knew where
it was: on the spot. The few ships that England had been able
to spare for the Pacific were at the bottom off the coast of
Malaya, victims of Japanese bombers.

The Aussies and *'Yanks" got along well. There was an espe-
cially close affinity between the healthy, unpretentious Aus-
tralian girls and the good-looking, well-dressed American
youngsters. This naturally caused some ill feeling between
Australian and American soldiers, but all of it was of a de-
cidedly minor nature and to be expected when vigorous young
men from two countries are thro\vn together. There were occa-
sional fisticuffs. One sure way for a Yank to pick a scrap was
to say to an Australian, 'Tine guys you are. We have to come
here to defend your country for you." To which tlie answer
was, *'Oh yairl Defend yourself, mate," followed by a swinging
right. The Aussies could always start a fight by remarking to
a Yank, "Oh, a refugee from Pearl 'Arbor, eh?"

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But on the whole relations were friendly. Every taxi driver
assured you, "Yair. You Yanks and we Aussies are just the
same kind of people."

The Aussies used to say, Mac Arthur is the man for this
job." "Old Mac will tell them, all rightl" "Mac will get it
donel"

The Americans, well mannered and well behaved, liked
the Australians too. The Australians were outspoken, forth-
right, and demonstrative. Every Australian was as good as the
next one. They were democratic in speech and manner, much
more so, perhaps, than Americans. There were no extremes
of wealth and poverty. Australia, under a labor government.
Was unquestionably a middle-class country. There could never
be a Cinderella story in Australia, because the girl shopworker
was accustomed to going to the best hotel in town for dinner
and dancing once or twice a week.

In mid-April we got news of the American bombing attack
on Tokyo. It was electrifying; almost too good to be true after
we had been waiting so many long, bitter weeks for the United
States to get started. MacArthur's staff was cheered, knowing
that every blow struck at Tokyo would shorten the war.

General Royce came safely back from the Philippines, his
planes loaded from nose to tail with Army and Navy men,
those who were not "expendable." I met the first plane back
at the Melbourne airport and was amazed when three old
friends stepped out: Colonel Chi-wang, with whom I had
intended to accompany Bulkeley to China in the PT boats;
Captain Villamor, hero of the Philippine Air Force; and Nat
Floyd of the Ne^v York Times, my companion on many trips
in Bataan.

A few days later Frank Hewlett arrived and then Dean
Schedler, the last reporter to leave the Philippines. General
Wainwright had arranged for them both to fly from Corregi-
dor after the fall of Bataan, and Dean s plane cracked up
twice on its way to Mindanao. Later the PT officers arrived,

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Bulkcley, Cox, Akers, and finally Kelly. Their fellow officer,
Lieutenant DeLong, had missed connections with the plane
at Del Monte and remained in the Philippines.

All the people who had come from the Philippines had one
idea: to get back there as fast as possible with a real army, a
real fleet and air force and drive out the Japs. All of them
were disconsolate when they found out the truth about our
forces in Australia. Those of us who had come from the P.I.
were keyed to a high pitch. I had to curb a tendency to hit for
cover when trolley car wheels screeched down the tracks.
Night after night I dreamed of how the end must have been in
Bataan, seeing our worn-out troops like hunted animals.
Awakening from those dreams I felt that I wanted very much
to go on living and did not want any more violence. But I
overcame that feeling by telling myself over and over that if
we all felt that way we could not win.

The spectacle of life as usual, or nearly usual, was a shock.
We who had come from the Philippines realized that life
nearly-as-usual was going on in the United States. That
couldn't last long, we thought.

Fighting our feeling of despair and futility, we relaxed for
' a while to prewar life. I went to the Australia Hotel in Mel-
bourne, which was crowded with Army and Navy officers and
correspondents. Colonel Lloyd Lehrbas, the AP correspond-
ent who was now attached to MacArthur's headquarters staflF,
tipped some of the reporters that the Japs might attack New
Caledonia, where the United States had amassed a strong
force. He arranged for me and Jonathan Rice, NEA photog-
rapher, to go there by way of New Zealand.

Mel Jacoby and I had been together constantly since De-
cember 29, and I consulted him before starting on my trip.
Jacoby decided to stay in Australia for a while. Brigadier Gen-
eral Hal George, who had commanded our fighter planes in
Bataan, had invited him to inspect our air bases in Australia.

The night before they took off, Mel and Annalee came over

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to my room to talk things over. They promised to come to
New Zealand and New Caledonia as soon as possible. Jona-
than Rice, who had gone to Stanford with both of them, took
a number of pictures and I kidded them about ''goop-nip-
ping," a term which we had applied on Corregidor to their
exchange of honeymooners' endearments. They were still
goop-nipping.

**When you get to New Zealand, Clark," Mel said, half se-
riously and half joking, "don't forget to look around for a line
of retreat. From here we can always get to Tasmania and then
to the South Pole if the Japs come. It looks like the only way
out of New Zealand is to Easter Island and then to Chile.
That*s quite a long jump in a banca.''

**You two are always talking about ways out of places," An-
nalee commented. "I am glad to see that for a change you are
both starting to go north, in the direction of the Japs. Let's
start a counteroffensive of our own/* We agreed that would
be a grand idea, and long overdue. We were sick of being
pushed around by the Japs.

Mel took off with General George next day and I left for
Sydney. The following noon a telephone call came from Larry
Lehrbas. "I think you should know," he said, "that Mel was
killed yesterday." Mel and General George had reached north-
em Australia without incident and were standing by their
parked plane on an airfield near Darwin when a P-40 got out
of control in a take-off. It swerved crazily across the field and
crashed into George*s parked plane. Mel was killed instantly
and George died within a few hours.

Before leaving Melbourne I said good-by to General Mac-
Arthur and thanked him for his help. MacArthur was busy,
working as best possible with the materials he had been given.
He had pledged, "I left the Philippines and I shall return."
The day of his return seemed a long time in the future. Noth-
ing could crush his unconquerable spirit, but he bridled
against the delay. Now Bataan was gone; Corregidor was about

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to go. The entire Orient and most of the western Pacific was
overrun and subjected. Japan had taken everything she had
set out to take, from Manila to Rangoon. MacArthur wanted
to hit before the enemy had time to solidify his conquered
areas.

On May i I took off from beautiful Sydney harbor in a big,
four-engined British flying boat of Qantas Airways. We
roared off the water in the wake of an American Navy PB2Y2,
a four-engined patrol bomber which was headed for San
Francisco. Shortly after dawn we flew across the white surf
breaking against Manly Beach and headed out over the Tas-
man Sea. All the way across the Tasman to New Zealand I kept
thinking of MacArthur as I had seen him since December 8;
MacArthur with his intense sincerity, his flashing brain, his
devotion to the soldier's code, his ability to inspire men.

I saw MacArthur not as I had seen him when I last shook
hands, a man with a bitter ache in his heart, but as I had seen
him first in Manila— shoulders back, cap tilted at a jaunty
angle, with four stars gleaming from the shoulder of his neatly
pressed shirt. I saw the man who couldn't lose^

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in the afternoon we flew across the narrow waist of
the northernmost of New Zealand's two big islands and
sat down smoothly in Auckland Harbor. On shore I immedi-
ately started looking for the American troops that we had
heard were in New Zealand.

I finally found them— all four of them, five counting Briga-
dier General Patrick J. Hurley, the American minister.

The four officers of the Quartermaster Corps had been sent
to make preparations for future troop arrivals. There was also
one Marine officer and several of the United States Navy. That
was important and encouraging, since it was obvious by then
that if Japan's swift-moving advance was to be halted it was
up to the American Navy to do it. With the exception of the
hit-run raids on Japan s Mandated Islands and Marcus Island,
we had not heard many reports of naval activities and we were
afraid that most of our fleet had been sunk or smashed in the
attack on Pearl Harbor.

The naval officers were arranging headquarters for Admiral
Ghormley, who was to command the "South Pacific" area,
which included New Zealand and New Caledonia and other
islands east of the line beyond which MacArthur was supreme
commander. Ghormley's command was likewise limited on
the north and east, but to the south it extended all the way
to the South Pole. The New Zealanders had requested to be
included in the areas under MacArthur, but when the division
was made they accepted it and pitched in to co-operate with
Ghormley. Commander Mike Cheek who had escaped from
Corregidor by submarine, was one of the Navy s advance
guard.

Two days after my arrival in New Zealand, I received ex-
citing, confidential news. A mighty Japanese invasion force

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was moving into the Coral Sea. Its objective might be New
Caledonia and New Zealand, or it might swing west to attack
Australia and New Guinea. There was no transportation avail-
able to New Caledonia, so I started checking up on New Zea-
land's defenses, and almost immediately ran into the startling
fact that the country was wide open to attack. If New Zealand
went, Australia would go too, since we could not maintain
our supply lines without New Zealand.

Five months after Pearl Harbor there were still no Ameri-
can troops in New Zealand. New Zealand had sent almost all
of its own troops— some sixty thousand of them— overseas to
fight in defense of the British Empire. They had distinguished
themselves in the ghastly battle of Crete and in Libya. Now
that their own country was threatened they were tliousands
of miles away. The sixty thousand represented the cream of
the nation s manhood. New Zealand's entire population was
only one and a half million, less than that of any one of a
dozen of the world's great cities.

Yet when the war came the government of New Zealand had
unhesitatingly given its consent for its troops to go abroad,
believing, as Prime Minister Peter Fraser told me, **This war
against the Axis is the war of all Free Peoples. All of us must
do our share. New Zealand has no great wealth in industry
or resources to give to the common cause, so we must give our
flesh and blood."

New Zealand was awaiting the arrival of American troops,
who were reported on the way. They were due in a matter of
weeks, while the Japanese could strike within a few days if
they kept coming south. News of the Japanese approach was
kept from the people, but the authorities were preparing for
a death struggle. The picture looked pretty hopeless. Major
General Puttick, commander in chief of the Army, was hur-
riedly training his infantry divisions. Every able-bodied man
up to the age of 65 was in uniform or in some vital war work.

Puttick had commanded New Zealand forces in Crete. *'We

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fought there with the bayonet/' he said, "and we will fight
with it here. The Eyetie (Italians) and the Hun couldn't stand
the bayonet, and I don't think the Jap will like it any better/'
That was whistling in the dark. Puttick knew very well you
couldn't stop an invasion force with bayonets. You had to have
ships and planes out in front of you. We didn't know if there
were any ships out there, but we did know what New Zea-
land's Air Force was. Its combat planes numbered nine P-40 s,
and there were a handful of trainers and a few medium bomb-
ers being used in reconnaissance. There was no shortage of
airmen.

Seeking a lift to New Caledonia, I went down to Welling-
ton, the capital, to talk to Air Force and Navy officials. The
New Zealand government gave me the keys to the country.
The interior department arranged interviews with Prime Min-
ister Fraser, the Army, Navy, and Air Force commanders, and
even with the leader of the ''opposition" party. The opposi-
tion party, it developed, didn't have much to oppose in the
labor government's policies. New Zealand's social legislation
had been in effect for many years and was firmly implanted.
Job insurance, old-age pensions, a form of socialized medi-
cine, and other reforms had been enacted in New Zealand long
before the New Deal came into power in the United States.

As in Australia there were no extremes of wealth and pov-
erty. But there were many contrasts between the two people,
and because they both were essentially farming countries pro-
ducing the same agricultural goods there were no close com-
mercial ties.

The New Zealanders were less exuberant, much more re-
served— "more English," as they said— than the Australians.
The English people who had come out to New Zealand a cen-
tury before had deliberately set out to duplicate as nearly as
possible their surroundings at home.

For several decades New Zealand's original white settlers
had fought with the proud and powerful Maoris, who had

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themselves emigrated from overseas several centuries before
and had thrived in this cold climate. The fight ended in a
draw, and Polynesian and Englishman settled down to live
side by side on terms of complete equality.

Now Maori and white man were fighting side by side in
the sands of Libya, while their homeland faced an immediate
threat of invasion of which most of New Zealand's people
were blissfully unaware. The Japanese Fleet was steaming
south toward their virtually defenseless country. On May 7
the newspapers began to carry brief reports of a battle in the
Coral Sea. We knew at last where the U. S. Navy was— out in
front of the Antipodes and fighting it out with the Japanese

I learned the details ten days later when I hitchhiked a ride
from New Zealand up to Fiji in a U. S. Navy PB2Y2. That
giant plane was loaded with news. One of the passengers was
taking a message from MacArthur to Washington officials, in-
forming them that MacArthur had no political aspirations of
any kind. He asked them please to send him a few more air-
planes. Several of the others, Navy officers, had been in the
Coral Sea Battle. One was a staff officer attached to the admiral
in command; another a dive-bomber pilot who had been
wounded. Their account of the battle was fascinating. Now at
last the United States was in action, hitting the enemy strongly
and powerfully, not fighting a last-ditch, hopeless fight like
Wake and Bataan.

The Coral Sea Battle was a turning point in the Pacific war.
For the first time the onward surge of Japan was stopped. And
the job was done entirely by airplanes, both land-based and
carrier-based. It was tlie first battle in history between air-
craft carriers and it proved, unequivocally, that air control is
absolutely vital to the movement of a force of ships.

For reasons of security our Navy did not announce details
of its part in the Coral Sea fight until after the Battle of Mid-
way, and as a result the impression was widespread that Amer-

Fleetl

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ican Army land-based bombers alone had turned back the
Japanese forces. Actually, both our Army and Navy partici-
pated in widely separated actions. The Japanese came down
from the Mandated Islands in two groups. One, made up of
transports and escorting destroyers, amounting to twenty-five
ships in all, sailed southeastward along the coast of New
Guinea. MacArthur s bombers struck at it time and again,
and the badly battered enemy force turned back before it
reached the tip of the Papuan peninsula.

The other Japanese force, consisting of aircraft carriers and
other warships, was several hundred miles out in front of the
transports. Its mission w^as to screen the troop-carrying ves-
sels from attack by American Navy ships. The Japs apparently
had information that two American task forces were prowling
around the northern part of the Coral Sea. The American
forces centered around the carriers Yorktown and Lexington.

Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher took the Lexington and
Yorktown into the Coral Sea and waited for the enemy. On
May 5 and 6 our scout planes flew far out from their carriers
and returned to report that the Japanese were not yet in
sight. But Fletcher knew they were coming and early on May
7 the scout planes found the Jap battle force. It included at
least two carriers, several battleships, ten or more cruisers,
and a number of destroyers. Planes roared off the Lexington
and Yorktown to hit the Japanese ships. Thus began the first
battle between aircraft carriers.

I got the story of the Coral Sea Battle from Commander
Jimmy Brett, who led the Lexington s torpedo planes in the
bomb and torpedo attack which sank the Jap carrier Ryukaku
on May 7 and damaged another carrier the following day
before the Lexington herself was mortally hit by Jap planes.

I talked to Brett and his pilots for hours in Fiji, trying to
learn their emotional reactions during a battle, and was
amazed to find them thinking of the most unexpected things.
For instance, Jimmy Brett told me he never worried about

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being shot down, or being killed in the air, or being left to
drift at sea in a rubber boat.

**It so happens that I am a color camera fan," he said. "I am
writing a book on color photography and do most of my com-
posing in the air. When we are going in to attack I plan my
next chapter/'

Jimmy was mad as hell that his notes for tlie book went
down with tlie Lexington.

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IHE Stories that Jimmy Brett and his pilots told me as we
sat on the cool veranda of the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva,
and later at a U. S. Army airfield Avhere young American
fliers were taking off and landing in P-39's, made me extremely
anxious to go out with our Fleet. It appealed to me as a grand
way to fight the war.

To get with the Fleet I had to go to Pearl Harbor to obtain
accreditation as a correspondent. Also, my wife was in Hono-
lulu, but the inevitable cablegram came from The AP:

**Please proceed to New Caledonia!" New Caledonia was in
the opposite direction, westward and away from home. There
was nothing to do but go.

With Jimmy Brett and his fellow pilots as copassengers, I
flew across Fiji's rugged mountains in an old De Haviland
cabin monoplane powered by four small Rolls-Royce motors.
Some of the Navy pilots were nervous. "To hell with this fly-
ing over the land," they said. ''Where will we be if those
motors quit?" Apparently they never considered where they
would be in their own planes if their motors quit far out over
the sea.

I waited several days for a ride to New Caledonia. One eve-
ning a Consolidated PBY5A, an amphibian flying boat, swept
in from the sea and landed. Admiral John S. McCain, a
hard-bitten veteran from Mississippi, climbed out. He was
commander of Navy and Army aircraft in the southwest Pa-
cific area, that part of the ocean and islands eastward of Gen-
eral MacArthur's command.

*'May I ride back with you. Admiral?" I asked.

**Sure," he said, **first thing in the morning."

I hoped to interview the admiral on the flight over, but the
twin motors made too much noise for conversation. The ad-

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miral sat on a suitcase in the rear machine-gun turret and
chewed gum, and I wrapped myself around a machine gun
and slept most of the way. We flew low, and the trip didn't
bother me. I woke up when we were circling outside the en-
trance to the harbor at Noumea, the only big town in New
Caledonia, and awaiting acknowledgment of our recognition
signals from an American warship auxiliary in the harbor.

New Caledonia flew the banner of the Fighting French. It
had originally been a penal colony of France, and its popula-
tion was a melange of Pacific island races— Javanese, Malayans,
and French, the last controlling the mining industry and the
others working as contract laborers. After the fall of France
there had been a bloodless revolution, and General De Gaulle
had sent one of his most colorful assistants, Admiral d'Argen-
lieu, out to the colony as governor. D'Argenlieu was later
transferred.

I spent ten days in New Caledonia, interviewing soldiers
from New England and Chicago and the nurses from Phila-
delphia who were living in the woods in conditions not unlike
those on Bataan— except that there was no shooting here.
Major General Patch, the American Army commander, kept
his forces busy in constant training and toughening maneu-
vers. He was looking forward to the day when our advance to
the north would begin. The training that Patch and Lieutenant
Colonel Alexander George gave their men came in handy
months later when they relieved the Marines on Guadalcanal.
The Coral Sea Battle had taken the pressure off New Caledonia
and I couldn't see any chance of an attack in the north in the
near future, so I decided to move on— back to Honolulu to get
attached to the Fleet. This time my office didn't know exactly
where I was, so there was no cable to stop my taking off in the
general direction of home.

I made connections by a narrow margin. Back at Noumea,
Lieutenant Arthur Train, Jr., of the Navy, son of the Amer-
ican author, told me a plane was leaving the next morning for

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Honolulu, He would have a launch at the dock to ferry me
out to the PB2Y2. I got up long before dawn and stumbled
through the blacked-out streets down to the dock.

It was good to be leaving Noumea. From a distance the city
was picturesque with its red roofs and green hills, but close up
it was anything but glamorous, especially with its open sewers.
There was no launch at the dock. Finally dawn broke and I
saw a small boat leave the American seaplane tender out in
the harbor and head for the PBY s anchored far off in the
distance. It was obviously not coming in my direction. Some
American soldiers on duty at anti-aircraft guns on the water
front came to my rescue. They telephoned to the signal sta-
tion in the hills behind the city, and a message was flashed out
to the tender. Train's first message had gone astray.

A launch came speeding across to the dock and picked me
up. We reached the PBY just before Lieutenant Shields
gunned the motors to take off. The big plane roared faster and
faster across the bay with the seas splashing on the portholes.
As it climbed on the step the water fell away from the win-
dows and we enjoyed the thrill of taxiing over the water at
close to 100 miles an hour. Suddenly Shields cut the gun and
the plane settled back into the water and slowed to a stop.
The wind had swung us around and we had been heading
directly into the hills at the mouth of the harbor. Shields
taxied back and this time we took off perfectly.

On the way to Honolulu we stopped at islands X, Y, and Z.
We had some excitement finding Z. We took off early in the
morning in perfect weather from a coral-encircled lagoon, but
as we flew eastward and north the weather clouded over and
we ran into a dark, threatening storm front that covered hun-
dreds of square miles. We had to fly through it for two hours
and in that time I learned two things: the exacting skill with
which our Navy fliers navigate over tremendous ocean dis-
tances from tiny island to island; and the reason that they
avoid clouds.

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They will never go through a cloud if they can go over or
under it. In the first place you never know what is on the other
side— how far the cloud extends; and secondly, clouds mean,
as the aviators told me, ''turbulent" ain Turbulent is a fitting
word for the air in some of those clouds. Crosscurrents tear at
your wings until you think they will fall o£E. The plane
bumps sickeningly, now plunging straight downward hun-
dreds of feet an^ at other times soaring upward on a current
of wind.

Island Z, to which we were flying that day and where Cap
tain Eddie Rickenbacker was taken after his rescue some
months later, was usually covered by clouds. That day was no
exception. For more than three hundred miles before w-e
readied the island we were flying on instruments, catching
only occasional glimpses of the sea. Yet our navigator brought
us straight to the island, hitting witliin a quarter mile of the
point for which he was aiming. He called our arrival time to
the minute. To me it was a miracle of navigation, yet it was a
miracle that our Navy fliers over tlie Pacific perform day after
day in the normal course of events. It is part of a job they have
mastered perfectly.

Life for our soldiers, sailors, and Marines on the Pacific
islands varies from place to place. Some of them are tropically
idyllic, with colorful pleasant towns, built by American or
British traders and administrators. Other islands are nothing
but flat bits of sand, minus trees or other vegetation, an-
chored in the middle of a changeless circle of ocean and be-
sieged by the equatorial sun.

The soldiers have movies and beer, magazines and mail
from home, and those things keep them from getting over-
whelmingly blue and homesick. They have a favorite gag on
those islands. When somebody mentions a girl they look blank
and say: **What was that word 'girl? I don't remember hearing
it before."

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The crews of ships and planes ferrying newcomers to the
islands always regale them with stories of the beautiful Army
and Navy nurses stationed there. They are quickly disillu-
sioned on their arrival. Anyway, they can always go swim-
ming—if they keep a sharp lookout for sharks.

I flew from one of those islands up to Honolulu. It seemed
as if the plane would never get there. For four hours I sat in
the bombardier's place in the nose of the PB2Y2, watching
for the Hawaiian Islands until my eyes ached. When we finally
sighted Oahu I didn't recognize it until we swung over Maili
beach, bounced over the Marine airfield at Ewa and settled
down on the waters of Pearl Harbor. It had taken me seven
months to make the trip from Shanghai to Honolulu.

I telephoned my wife and apologized for being a little late
getting back and would she excuse it please? She would.

I found that she was working at an airfield; and that was
only one of the many changes brought to the Islands by the
Japanese attack six months before. All the civilians not in
Army or Navy uniform were at work, building airfields, re-
pairing ships, constructing docks; or serving in hospitals, act-
ing as air raid wardens, or helping the Red Cross. Everybody
carried a gas mask. The blackout was strictly and seriously en-
forced, and you had to have a pass to go outdoors after curfew
hour.

Civilians were allowed only ten gallons of gasoline a month
and one quart of liquor a week. Bars and restaurants closed
several hours before sundown. There were shortages of milk,
eggs, meat, and vegetables as all the Island products went to
the armed forces. A military governor sat in lolani Palace, in
olden days the home of Hawaiian royalty and later the peace-
time office of the civilian governor. There was no doubt that
Hawaii was at war.

Pearl Harbor still showed signs of the bombing. The an-
cient target ship Utah was lying on the bottom on the western

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shore of Ford Island. The Oklahoma, on its side with part of
its hull looming out of the water, lay ahead of the Arizona,
which had gone straight down after a bomb exploded its
magazine. The West Virginia was being gradually raised.

Another battleship was in drydock after being salvaged,
and still others had already been patched up and taken to the
Pacific Coast for repairs. Work crews swarmed over the Okla-
homa and West Virginia, and the wreck of the Arizona was
being dismantled in order to remove the reminder of that
disastrous Sunday morning.

At near-by Hickam Field, there were still broken windows
and chipped walls to show where a bomb had plunged through
a dormitory and killed or wounded three hundred men while
Japanese fighters machine-gunned and destroyed our planes
on the ground.

Most of the scars of battle had been removed from the
Kaneohe naval air station, across the island from Pearl Har-
bor. At Kaneohe Japanese bombers deliberately ignored two
empty hangars and laid their bombs squarely on a third, de-
stroying at one blow most of our Navy patrol planes and
killing many men. That showed that the Japanese had excel-
lent espionage.

But as great as the debacle at Pearl Harbor had been, as
staggering the loss of life, I soon became convinced that the
Japanese had lost their great chance to win the war in those
three flaming, terrible hours on December 7. The mistake
that they had made was almost inconceivable.

Far more than our own admirals they had realized the sig-
nificance of air power. Their primary targets on December 7
were undoubtedly our aircraft carriers. Through sheer good
fortune our aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor at the
time of the attack. If, instead of hitting the battleships, the
Japs had aimed their bombs and torpedoes at the docks, shops,
oil tanks and shore installations in Pearl Harbor, the entire
course of the war would have been changed. They could easily

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have knocked out Pearl Harbor as a base, forcing our Navy
back to the Pacific Coast.

The men that we lost at Pearl Harbor were martyrs to un-
preparedness. The battleships that we lost there were ready
for the scrap pile before they were ever hit by a Japanese
bomb. They were too slow for modem war. The battleship
had had its day. No battleship that escaped damage at Pearl
Harbor, no battleship that was damaged there and later re-
paired, played any part in the Battles of the Coral Sea and
Midway. No battleship fired a shot in the early days of the
Solomons action. Later, we reported that battleships had par-
ticipated in a fight off the Solomons— at night.

Since battleships did not play any part in the fighting in
the Pacific in the first eleven months of war, the question
arises of why our Navy took so long to get into action against
the Japanese. Our Navy was just as strong on the afternoon of
December 7 when the battleships were still exploding and
sinking in Pearl Harbor as it was five months later in our first
fight in the Coral Sea. Why, then, couldn't our Navy save
Wake Island, only two thousand miles from Pearl Harbor? A
few weeks before the war the United States had been told that
its Navy was the greatest fighting force in the world, supreme
in the Pacific. That made it difficult to understand why a tre-
mendous American task force was ordered to turn back when
within one hundred and fifty miles of Wake Island. The fight-
ing rank and file aboard those ships, and many of the officers,
cursed and wept when they received those orders.

Later, as some of them told me, they were hopping mad
when they learned that our ships had been called back because
of the reported presence of Jap ships near Wake and were even
more angry when they learned the Jap * 'force*' consisted of only
four destroyers going in to shell our hard-pressed Marines,
fighting desperately for their lives, waiting minute by minute
for help, and wirelessing back to Pearl Harbor, "Get off your
fat backsides and send us more ammunition and more Japs."

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The answer, apparently, is that the Pearl Harbor attack was
a psychological blow to many of our admirals. They had put
their faith in those "elephants/* the battleships. Stripped of
their battleships they were as lost as a man suddenly deprived of
his trousers in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Their instinct \vas
to cover up, to assume the defensive rather than to seek out
the enemy for a finish fight. Nearly everyone who saw the Pearl
Harbor attack told me that if the Japs had followed up and
landed troops they could have taken Honolulu easily. Our
aerial defenses had been smashed and there was a great deal
of confusion and disorganization.

I was interested in the reactions of persons who had seen
the Pearl Harbor attack. Almost none of them could believe
their eyes. Even officers who stood on the decks of near-by
ships at Pearl Harbor and watched the Japanese dive bombers
and torpedo planes blow up the Arizona, thought that there
must be some mistake.

Even while they were shooting at the planes they couldn't
believe it. One officer who was on duty in the engine room of
an undamaged ship came up on deck an hour after the attack
and remarked, '*Hey, these maneuvers are getting pretty
rough 1" Arthur G. Hodgins, a doctor who lives at Pearl City,
adjacent to the harbor, drove into Honolulu past the flaming
wreckage. He told a meeting of fellow doctors that hell had
broken loose. They laughed at him and went on with their
business— until a call suddenly came in for all doctors to rush
to Tripler General Hospital- The civilians said to one an-
other, incredulously, "The Japs can't do this to us." But the
Japs could— and did— and got away with the loss of only a few
planes.

The day that I landed at Pearl Harbor was nearly six
months after the attack. When I got out of the plane at Ford
Island, Lieutenant Tom Quinn greeted me as an old friend.
He had given me many stories when he was a member of the
Honolulu police force and he gave me one now.

D . y Google

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*'The Japs have attacked the Aleutian Islands/' he said. "A
flash just came in/'

He went on, "And something big seems to be about to hap-
pen in this area/' Tom wasn't exaggerating. What happened
was the Battle of Midway.

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-L^EXT morning the Battle of Midway was raging in full
fury. Nothing had been published in the newspapers, but
everybody in Honolulu knew a fight was going on. Walking
downtown, I met many old friends whom I was delighted to
see. But they looked at me accusingly. "Don't you think you'd
like to go back to Australia, or to California, or the South
Pole? Trouble follows you around and we've already had our
share of it here." I decided to stay, regardless. Honolulu was
my adopted home, and besides it was only seventeen hours by
plane from California. It was the farthest east I had been since
1936.

I was too late to witness the Battle of Midway, but I was in
time to help cover it from Honolulu, getting the stories from
the youngsters who returned flushed with the excitement and
thrills of the greatest experiences in their lives.

Midway was our most important victory of the first year of
war against Japan. It was won entirely by airplanes, and in
turning back the Japanese our forces saved the Hawaiian
Islands from invasion. Our Army, Navy, and Marine Corps
functioned perfectly. Our soldiers, sailors, and Marines fought
gallantly. The planning was perfect and the trap well laid.

Somehow, our Navy knew that the Japs were coming to
Midway, and by knowing that they changed the course of the
war. If our carriers had been plowing around the Coral Sea,
waiting for the Japanese to come back there for a second drive
to the south, we would have lost Midway.

I got the story in snatches. The Army pilots were first to
return from Midway and they gave their accounts first. The
Navy could not tell all of its story until its ships returned to
port. The Marines' stories were held up for many days by the
Navy censors. Admiral Nimitz, in a commendable effort to

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end the Army-Navy rivalry that still existed even a half year
after Pearl Harbor, allowed the Army stories to go out to the
mainland before the Navy accounts were written. His efforts,
however, backfired into a terrific battle between Army and
Navy over which should get ''credit" for winning the battle.

This feeling continued to exist for many weeks. It became
an angry bone of contention between Army and Navy officers,
especially those of lower rank. Its repercussions were still echo-
ing six months later. In Honolulu the bad feeling took the
form of numerous fist fights between Army and Navy officers.

The big question was, "Who sank the Jap carriers?" The
Army pilots, at first, claimed to have hit several carriers. The
Marines reported they got several hits. The Navy carrier pilots,
who attacked after the Army and Marines, said the enemy car-
riers were undamaged when they bombed them. Not only the
lower officers participated in the squabbling. A three-star ad-
miral said tome contemptuously, "You can't hit anything from
twenty thousand feet." That reference to high-altitude bomb-
ing became a pet expression of Navy pilots. Actually, there was
credit enough for everybody in the Midway Battle.

The Japanese moved on Midway in two vast armadas. The
first steamed straight in from the west and included twenty
or more transports and a number of escort vessels. The other
force approached from the northwest and centered around four
big aircraft carriers, the Kaga.Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu, flanked
by cruisers, destroyers, and possibly battleships. The enemy
plan called for airplanes from these carriers to hit Midway at
dawn on June 4 and knock out our airplanes and land defenses.
The transports were to have landed their troops and supplies
the following morning. Then, with Midway consolidated, the
Japanese intended to move against Oahu and fight it out for
Pearl Harbor.

Their plans went wrong, apparently, because they did not
know the location of our own aircraft carriers. Our Army
long-distance bombers found and attacked the Japanese first.

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on the afternoon of June 3. B-17's, led by Colonel Walter C.
Sweeney, Jr., hit and damaged one cruiser or battleship which
was left in flames, and also one transport and one destroyer.
There were no carriers with that enemy force, and the only
opposition to our planes was from anti-aircraft.

During the night of June 3, Navy patrol planes located the
main Japanese battle force and the following morning all of
our planes at Midway took off to attack. Midway had been
quickly and effectively reinforced with planes only a few days
before the battle, some of them flying from San Francisco to
Honolulu, pausing to refuel, and then speeding out to Midway
to pick up bombs.

Midway was ready. No planes were caught on the ground
there. All of them got aloft shortly after dawn, led by the
Marine fighters. Four Army B-26*s, twin-engined Martin bomb-
ers, commanded by Captain Collins, took off carrying tor-
pedoes. It was the first Army torpedo plane attack in history.
Two of the B-26's got back. Six new Navy Grumman TBF
(Avenger) torpedo planes also took off. One of them got back.
The others were shot down by swarms of Japanese fighters
and by anti-aircraft. Marine dive bombers also took off from
Midway and hit at the Japanese battle fleet, and heavy Army
bombers followed up the attack. The Marines reported bomb
hits on two enemy carriers and two heavy surface ships. Army
pilots saw their bombs blanket a carrier and they got one pos-
sible hit on the bow.

Meanwhile, the Japanese carriers had steamed within two
hundred miles of Midway during the night and launched their
planes at dawn. Dive bombers and high-level bombers, pro-
tected by Zero fighters and Messerschmitts, roared in to attack.
They were met by Marine fighters.

The work of the Marine fighter pilots that morning has
never been sufficiently praised. Six months after the start of
the war they were still flying a fighter plane which the Navy
had long since discarded as obsolete. The Marine fliers knew

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before they took off that their chances of getting back were
slim. Only a few of them did. But before they were shot down
they whipped into the approaching enemy planes and blasted
at least forty-three dive bombers and three or four enemy
fighters out of the sky.

Not more than eighteen enemy dive bombers reached Mid-
way and only fourteen bombs hit the island, killing some of
the Marine anti-aircraft men and shore defenders but not
damaging the airfield. The Japs deliberately avoided bombing
the runways, confidently expecting to take Midway and use
the field themselves.

The surviving Japanese planes retumed to their carriers to
refuel and reload for a second attack at Midway. Before it
could be delivered our own Navy struck. Two American task
forces had been plowing through the calm seas two hundred
miles north of Midway and now their planes pitched into the
battle.

One American task force centered around two aircraft car-
riers; the Hornet under Admiral Fitch and another under Ad-
miral Spruance. Near by steamed the carrier Yorktown with
Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who was in command of the
entire operation.

Planes from our carriers flew to the west, searching for the
enemy. I got the story from pilots of Bombing Squadron Three,
Gordon Sherwood, Syd Bottomley, Roy Isaman, and others, all
Naval Reserve lieutenants who were flying Douglas dive
bombers.

Their story should be entitled "The Miracle of Midway: or
The Tale, of a Puff of Smoke."

They had already flown past the Jap carriers, which were
partially hidden by clouds and had failed to sight them. Then,
far down in the engine room of one of the enemy ships, a fire-
man accidentally pulled the wrong lever. A burst of black
smoke poured out of the carrier's funnel. It lasted only a few
seconds but those few seconds had been enough. Out of the

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comer of their eyes the pilots of Bombing Three had seen the
smoke. They swarmed in to attack and caught the giant Akagi
with its planes on deck. They left the Akagi wrecked and
burning.

Then the dive-bombing squadrons from our other two car-
riers, who had also flown past the Jap force, sighted the smoke
of the burning Akagi and came back and attacked the other two
carriers. A fourth Jap carrier was sunk later in the day, and
the Japs turned and fled, pursued by our planes. Except for that
puff of smoke, our planes might have missed the Jap carriers
and our own carriers might have been put out of action.

Meanwhile the Yorktown had been bombed and torpedoed
by Jap planes. While being towed to Pearl Harbor a day later
it ran into a nest of enemy subs and was sent to the bottom.

Airplanes, courage, brilliant staff work— and a lucky puff of
smoke— had saved Midway.

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all of our pilots lived to exult over the destruction of
the Jap carriers at Midway.

Out of more than forty torpedo planes, only four pilots came
back alive.

And there were, for instance, two Marine pilots. Major
Lofton R. Henderson and Captain Richard E. Fleming. Both
of their planes were hit and set afire by anti-aircraft as they
dived on Japanese ships. They made no attempt to pull out
or save themselves, but kept on going down and dropped their
bombs and crashed— Henderson on the deck of a Japanese bat-
tleship and Fleming in the sea.

When I heard the story of what they had done my mind
skipped back many months to a scene in a Shanghai restaurant
where an American Marine officer had said to a Japanese naval
captain "... and if your ships come into our waters our
pilots will go just as low and just as close as necessary to get
home their bombs and torpedoes. And if it is necessary to
crash-dive on your ships, they will do that too."

And there were Navy pilots, like John Quincy Roberts,
Ensign USNR, and Carl Pfeiffer, same rank and same Navy.
Roberts and Pfeiffer were the most talkative members of their
bombing squadron. They were always talking about what they
would do to the Japs. Roberts, Pfeiffer, and a lot of other en-
signs in their squadron all got their wings at the same time.
Most of them were Southerners.

Roberts and Pfeiffer were pals. They roomed together and
they learned to fly dive bombers together. They were always
cooking up jokes together. In the air they flew wing tip to
wing tip.

J. Q. Roberts played football for Alabama in the Rose Bowl
and he looked it. The first thing you noticed were his sloping

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shoulders and his strong, powerful neck. He was only a little
above middle height but he looked as strong as a bull.

His reddish brown hair was cropped short when he joined
the Navy and he grew a little mustache, like the rest of the
boys in his squadron. When you looked into his eyes they made
you suddenly remember Captain Arthur Wermuth, out on
Bataan, and Lieutenant John Bulkeley at the helm of the PT
boat roaring up toward Subic Bay. He had the same look in his
eyes.

Pfeiffer was tall and good-looking with deep-set eyes and
deep lines in his face from smiling a lot. His chin was square
and he wore his flier^s cap at a jaunty angle.

J. Q. was always kidding the **No'theners" in his squadron.
He would say, 'Tine crowd you damnyankees turned out to
be, havin' to get us Dixie boys to fight yoh war for you-all."
Then the Northern boys would kid J. Q. and ask him how
come he was named after a damnyankee from Boston and
didn't he know the Mason-Dixon Line wasn't on the maps
any more.

J. Q. wasn't a red-hot pilot. He just didn't care about details.
All he worried about was getting into action. Most of the boys
w^ould worry about getting their planes down onto the carrier
deck just so, but it never bothered J. Q. Any old way so long
as he got her down. The boys used to tell him, * J. Q., your right
wing was too high on that landing. You came in pretty fast."
And J. Q. would say, "I got her down, didn't I?"

After December 7, J. Q. used to read about those Jap pilots
doing suicide dives into our ships out in the Far East, or, as the
Jap accounts always said, *'The heroic pilot dived his crippled
plane into an enemy ship, blowing it to destruction." Those
stories made J, Q. mad as hell.

"Do those damn' Japs think they are trying to teach Amer-
icans what it is to be heroic?" J. Q. would ask the boys. ''They're
not going to teach me anything. When we get our first crack
at them I'm going to dive down and lay my egg right on the

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middle of the deck of their biggest carrier. And if I miss Tm
going to keep right on diving down into the funnel and set that
ship on fire/'

And Pfeiffer would say, 'Til be right behind you, J. Q.**

The skipper of their squadron didn't like the way J. Q. and
Pfeiffer looked when they said that. He told them, 'Took, boys,
you don't have to do that. If you miss, w^hy, hell, come back for
another bomb and go back and don't miss the second time."

But J. Q. would say, ' Captain, I've only got one life to live
and one death to die. If I live IVe got a girl I want to marry. If
I die I've made up my mind to die for my country and nobody
can talk me out of it."

And Pfeiffer would say, 'TU be right behind you, J. Q/'

Ensign Johnny Butler was another one like J. Q. and Pfeiffer.
Butler should have been a fighter pilot. He was just crazy
about fighting in the air. He knew his dive bomber wasn't
built for fighting but it didn't make any difference. He swore
he would tackle the first Zero he saw and shoot it down. The
boys told him that Zeros could climb pretty fast and turn
around a lot quicker than his dive bomber, but Butler said that
didn't matter, he was going to get him a Zero anyway.

Their squadron went aboard the Hornet about the end of
May and the ship headed out from Pearl Harbor as if it had im-
portant business to perform. The admiral told the boys aboard
that they were going out to tangle with Yamamoto's big fleet
that was heading for Midway.

Their skipper took the squadron off on the morning of June
4 and they headed out to tangle with Yamamoto's fleet. The
Akagi was already burning when they found the Jap ships.
They pushed over at tw^enty thousand feet to hit the Kaga.
They fixed their sights on the big carrier squirming and turn-
ing down there on the water. They held their sticks forward
and grabbed their bomb releases firmly in their left hands.
They counted a slow **0-N-E" for each thousand feet of alti-
tude they were losing.

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The first pilots to dive got hits, and flames shot up from the
Kaga's deck. Then J. Q. Roberts dived and his bomb missed
the deck and struck the water right alongside the carrier.
Pfeiffer was right behind J. Q. and his bomb hit in the same
place.

The other pilots were just above them in their dive and they
saw it all.

J. Q. never tried to pull out of his dive. He kept right on
going down and he dived his plane right into the Kaga's
funnel. Pfeiffer was right behind him. There was a big sheet
of flame and two big explosions that tossed the other plane
around in the sky.

The other boys pulled out and away and joined up on their
squadron leader. The last they saw of Butler he was dogfight-
ing a Zero. The Jap did a quick climb and a loop and came
down on Butler s tail and the other boys could see his 20-mm.
cannon biting big pieces out of Johnny's plane.

The boys who used to fly with J. Q. and Pfeiffer and Butler
often talk about those three. They miss them a lot. But they
reckon that when the Japs hear about J. Q. and his buddies
they won't try to teach Americans any more lessons in how to
be heroic.

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When we cleaned up the story of Midway in The AP
office I began to think again about going home for a few weeks.
My mother was ill and I wanted to see her. But the usual tele-
gram came. This time Alan Gould wired, "Desire Lee join
Honolulu staff." I did not protest my assignment. I wanted to
go out with the Fleet, which was the only American fighting
force that could still do any fighting in the Pacific. There were
no more land fronts and if any oflFensive was to be undertaken
the Navy had to carry the burden.

I did not know at the time that "global strategy" called for
us to fight a delaying action in the Pacific. I believed we were
ready for an all-out attack and I wanted to see our first offensive.
The Navy granted my request for assignment to an aircraft
carrier. Carriers had been in the heart of the action at Coral
Sea and Midway, and would undoubtedly be in the middle of
whatever we were going into. The crews of the carriers were
proud of their exposed duties. They were the chief targets for
enemy attacks, and an average of lo per cent of them wouldn't
ever come home again if Japanese dive bombers and torpedo
planes got through to hit their ship. But they were also, through
their planes, our chief weapon for doing damage to the enemy.
My great ambition was to witness a carrier battle and to fly
over the Japs and drop bombs on them. That would be my
personal revenge for hours of cowering in foxholes on Cor-
regidoi* and Bataan while Jap planes circled lazily in the air
above us.

Shortly after July 4 I got orders to go aboard the carrier. I
was glad that it was one of the biggest ships afloat. I had ridden
on the smallest of the Navy's ships, the PT's in the Philip-
pines, and now I hoped to see action on one of the largest. This
carrier had arrived too late for the Battle of Midway and its

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fliers and crew were impatiently waiting to mix it with the Japs.

We boarded a launch at Pearl Harbor and rode out to the
ship. In the month since I had arrived from Australia a great
deal of salvage work had been done. One of the battleships that
had been on the bottom a month before was in dry dock now;
another was afloat, and the Arizona was being dismantled.
Only the Oklahoma looked the same. There was constant ac-
tivity at Pearl Harbor; ships being loaded and their ammuni^
tion supplies replenished; sailors going aboard their carriers,
cruisers, and destroyers after their last shore leave; a tangible
air of excitement which told, unmistakably, that something
big was cooking.

Jack Singer of the INS, and Al Brick, Fox movie cameraman
who had filmed the Jap attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the
Battle of Midway, were assigned to the carrier with me. Joe
Custer of the UP, went to the Astoria; Foster Hailey of the
New York Times to another cruiser. Singer and I thought we
were sitting pretty for observing operations— we could fly; we
could also get our fliers* stories, and if our task force were at-
tacked our ship would be the target.

As things worked out, Joe Custer also had a box seat* He
was wounded and narrowly missed losing an eye when the
Astoria was sunk in the Savo Island Battle on August 9.

For a few nights we slept on the carrier in 'Tearl'*— which
is what our Navy calls Pearl Harbor. Aboard ship it was swel-
tering. When they are anchored or tied up, warships get heated
through and through and it takes a couple of weeks at sea for
them to cool off. Except for the heat, life aboard the carrier
was comfortable, almost luxurious, with mess attendants to
wait on us in the officers' wardroom, make our beds, and shine
shoes.

This war at sea wasn't anything like war in Bataan. There
the pressure was never off. Here it came only in brief flashes
at long intervals. Up until the time of our attack in the Solo-
mons not a single ship of our Pacific Fleet had fired a shot at

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any enemy surface vessel except in the brief raids on Japan's
Mandated Islands. Most of our ships had been at sea nearly
continuously since Pearl Harbor, but there had been only
short, sharp action in the Coral Sea and at Midway where our
ships were attacked by Japanese dive bombers and torpedo
planes and fought off the attacks with their anti-aircraft guns.
The rest of the time was spent cruising around.

Cruising around day after day and week after week was
highly monotonous, and the thousands of men aboard the
ships in our task forces dreamed day and night of once more
getting back to port— any port on the mainland. Many of them
would rather remain at sea than put into Pearl Harbor, where
the intense heat in their ships and the lack of any amusing
diversions only added to their loneliness.

Life with the Fleet in wartime is a lot better than life in
the trenches, but there are many other more pleasant ways of
passing a lifetime. Even on a carrier, where the crew eats well
and can have an ice-cream sundae in the afternoons, and there
is an occasional movie and plenty of room for handball, touch
football, and games of catch on the flight deck, the days are
monotonous.

Our carrier sailed out of Pearl Harbor early on July 7. We
twisted down the channel, picking up speed, and headed out
into the open sea and to the southwest. The cruisers and de-
stroyers in our task force took up their positions flanking us,
alert for lurking submarines. There were more than fourteen
ships in our force, but after a few days the other ships became
just a part of the scenery and we never noticed them except
when they were hunting submarines or practice-firing their
anti-aircraft guns.

With Captain '*Duke*' Ramsey, who was bound for his first
fight in the Pacific, we stood on the bridge overlooking the
huge flight deck, as long as three football fields. It was bare
of planes, but the plane handlers, wearing purple, red, or
yellow jerseys and cloth helmets to make their assignments

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more easily distinguishable, were busy about the deck. Singer
and I didn't know exactly where we were going, and Captain
Ramsey couldn't tell us just yet. But he promised action.

'*We are not going out on a joy ride," he said. He pointed
to a great rainbow rising out of the mists and clouds hanging
over the green mountains of Oahu. ** Let's see what we find at
the other end of that rainbow.*'

He introduced us to Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who was
in command of operations with the carrier as his flagship, and
to Colonel Melvin J. Maas, a member both of Congress and
of the U. S. Marine Corps.

We were out of sight of land by lunchtime, and afterward
I went down below for a siesta. I had been assigned a room in
the ''Officers' Country" with Lieutenant Gordon Sherwood.
The room resembled a cabin on a liner, with a bed, swinging
bunk, desk, drawers, clothes closet, and wash basin. I had just
gone to sleep when there was a terrific burst of noise. It
sounded as if hundreds of guns were firing, right over my
head.

I ran up to the flight deck. All the guns along the port side
of the deck— 5-inchers, 20-millimeters, and 1.1 -inch pom-poms
were firing at a plane that was coming straight in at us low
over the water. Bright lines of tracer bullets streamed out of
the ship and black shells from the five-inchers burst all around
the plane. It still kept coming, so close that it looked as if it
was going to hit us. Then it zoomed up and circled our stern
and headed for a near-by cruiser. Finally it wobbled and
crashed into the sea. The plane was a ''drone," not flown by a
pilot but radio-controlled from another plane high above it.

TTie aviators on board kidded the life out of our gunners.
**You guys can't even shoot down a drone," they said.

"How can anti-aircraft guns alone stop a torpedo plane at-
tack or keep dive bombers off our heads? Even the most mod-
em gun-aiming devices cannot follow the maneuvers of a dive
bomber."

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The anti-aircraft men tried to convince the fliers that anti-
aircraft was the answer to airplanes, but the pilots contended
that ships can be protected from aerial attack only by fighter
planes, and the fighters must intercept the enemy formations
far enough away to give them time to shoot down all the at-
tackers. If even four or five planes get through, the chances are
that they will get enough hits with bombs and torpedoes and
cause enough damage to force the ships to return to dry dock
for repairs— if they remain afloat.

Late that afternoon our own planes came aboard from land
bases in the Hawaiian Islands. The dive bombers plunged
out of the sun and dropped miniature water bombs at a target
"sled" towed behind our ship, fighters roared low and strafed
it, and the torpedo planes made practice runs at us.

Then the planes got into the ^'landing circle" and one by
one came in to sit down on the deck.

The fliers never tired of watching their fellow pilots land.
They were kindly but severely critical of each other, and a
landing had to be exceptionally good to win praise. I found
that the pilots flew much more smoothly under stress. When
we were in action they all came aboard quickly and perfectly.
At other times they had good days and bad ones. Bad landings
seemed to be contagious. If one pilot got a wave-oflF, four or
five behind him might also make bad approaches. Sometimes
a pilot would have to make two or three approaches before
getting into good landing position.

Our pilots were a grand bunch, healthy and uninhibited.
Most of them were officers, with only a few enlisted pilots.
They did their work in a matter-of-fact, unconcerned man-
ner. Occasionally a pilot found that the strain of day-after-day
flying over water, with only a single motor between him and
death in the sea, was too much. He would report his condi-
tion to the squadron doctor and would be quietly transferred
to other duties. Our pilots joked about being "expendable."
They didn't mind being expended in action. It was their job,

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and they said, *'What the helll You have to die sometime/*
They did protest when lives were expended unnecessarily,
as the time when one dive bomber crash-landed in the sea only
twenty-eight miles from our ships and nothing was done—
until it was far too late— to send out a destroyer to pick the
crew up; or when they were ordered out in weather so bad
that their chances of getting back aboard were almost nil;
or when, due to delays, they were kept in the air so long that
they ran out of gasoline and were forced to sit down in the
water.

The second day out of Honolulu I flew in the rear seat of
a dive bomber. I wanted to know what it was like so as to be
able to write about it more authoritatively. Jack Singer flew
too, on a practice mission that was a rehearsal for the opera-
tions we were to carry out in the Solomons. Jack hated air-
planes. He even hated roller coasters, but he thought it his
duty to go.

Dive bombing was a little rougher than roller coasting. In
a dive bomber you go up above fifteen thousand feet, lift the
plane s nose to slow its speed while you crack open your diving
flaps, then nose over and head straight down at your target.
The plane is straight up and down in relation to the ground
—a go-degree angle— but because of forward motion the ap-
proacli to the target is at about 70 degrees.

The Japs glide-bomb, rather than dive-bomb, coming in at
a 45-degree angle. In our dive bombers you release your bomb
at somewhere under 2,500 feet and then pull back your control
stick and level out. Unless you are used to it, the pull-out al-
most snaps your neck off. Sometimes you miss with a dive
bomber, but usually you come close enough at least to damage
your target. Dive bombers have been one of the most damag-
ing weapons in the Pacific war.

Jack Singer and I flew in the dive bombers in order to ac-
custom the officers of our carrier to the idea that correspond-
ents habitually flew in Navy planes. Since the carrier had not

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previously been in action and had not had reporters aboard,
the officers didn't know of any regulations to the contrary and
very generously permitted us to fly whenever we wished.

One day I was flying in a dive bomber with Lieutenant
Fred Schroeder on patrol over our task force. Our job was to
look for submarines. I had told Freddie of my few flying les-
sons years before and he let me handle the controls.

Visibility was bad from the rear seat of the SBD and I had
some trouble at first keeping the plane in level flight. Then I
got the hang of it. Finally I got tired and called to Fred over
the microphone: "You take over now, Fred."

About fifteen minutes later Fred called me, "Hey, you're
letting the left wing get too far down. Hold her a little
straighter."

I gasped. haven't touched the controls for fifteen minutes.
I thought you had the stick."

"And I thought you had it," Fred answered, unruffled. *'Just
goes to show you that these SBD's are so well built that they'll
fly themselves."

To kill time on the carrier, we did a lot of arguing. For
several hours a day I was writing about the losing battle in
Bataan and reliving intensely the anxiety and horror of those
days. I asked some of the officers the questions that had been
asked me so often in Bataan.

"Where the hell was our Navy while the Japs were taking
the Philippines, Singapore, Malaya, and Burma?"

"Why didn't we relieve Wake?"

One of the younger officers on Admiral Fletcher's staff
argued with me at the dinner table every night.

"If we had gone there we might have lost our ships," he said.
"We couldn't afford to do that."

"What if we did lose some ships as long as we were hitting
the enemy? The Marines on Wake were losing their lives. So
were the people on Bataan. What is to be saved in this war, and
what expended?"

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"You don't understand naval strategy. You have no right to
discuss it."

'*How about this present mission, whatever it is?" I asked.
*'Are we going to risk this carrier?"
"Not if we can help it."

It seemed to me that some of our officers thought only of
NOT losing more ships, and it was in that mood that we under-
took our early operations in the Solomons.

On the way to the attack, I argued that audacity would
pay us dividends, as it had paid the Japs dividends and won
them a mighty empire. I thought we should sail in, smack-
smack-smack, and let the devil and Davy Jones pick up the
pieces. If the Japs sank our ships, why, we still had airplanes to
defend the West Coast and our Islands. Some of the officers
resented what they probably considered my telling them how
to run the Navy.

There were other points of dispute. I thought the crew of
the ship, the enlisted men, should be informed as fully as pos-
sible of what was ahead of them when a fight was looming. It
would be good for morale and efficiency. It seemed to me, also,
that there was a clear-cut division between the reserve officers
and those from Annapolis. The reservists got longer terms of
sea duty, less leave, and slower promotion. Not wearing the
Annapolis class ring, they were * 'outsiders." Moreover the An-
napolis officers tended to think of the ships of the Navy as
their own private property, instead of the property of the
American people. They rejected all suggestions that this was a
people's war and, within reason, the people should be kept
fully informed of how it was progressing.

Besides discussing those points we spent several hours every
night fighting the Army-Navy war. As neutrals. Jack Singer
and I took the part of the Army, but only to the extent of
urging that the hatchet be buried and the two services get
together. Jack was a valuable ally. Only 27 and slight, he pos-
sessed a quick wit and a flashing sense of humor. This was hib

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first experience with war— **all these people riding around in
ships, flying airplanes, shooting off guns"— and he thought it
was all highly nonsensical. But he was deeply concerned by the
feeling between Army and Navy.

The dispute centered around flying. The Navy officers would
say, ''Those Army guys can't fly.''

"Well. They sure are trying. They've had to rush their pilot
training program along faster than yours. They flew their
hearts out at Midway," we would reply.

"They can't navigate and they can't shoot."

"Well, why in hell don't you teach them?"

"They can't hit anything from twenty thousand feet."

"Do you expect them to use Flying Fortresses as dive bomb-
ers? Do you mean they are afraid of coming below twenty
thousand?"

"No, not afraid. But they didn't hit half as much as they
claimed at Midway. Our dive bombers did the work and they
got the credit."

"We'll admit that the Army high command was overanxious
to claim undeserved results at Midway. But—, you aren't going
to win the war in headlines. Maybe the Fortresses can't hit
moving ships from high altitudes, but there is no reason why
they can't hit land targets from any height. Can't you guys
realize you are all Americans— Army and Navy— and all fight-
ing the same war?" And so on. . . .

It may sound incredible, but when on occasion our pilots
from our carrier landed at South Pacific island bases operated
by the Army, they were amazed to find that "those Army fliers
aren't such bad guys after all." The nearer the front the two
services got, the more they forgot their differences.

The Navy men had been so thoroughly impregnated with
the idea that the Army was composed only of * 'glory grabbers"
and "headline hunters" that it took some time for them to real-
ize that the youngsters flying the Army planes were their fellow
Americans. My analysis of this attitude was definitely not over-

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exaggerated. The situation was so bad that many of our officers
were seriously worried about it. Some were even reported to
have found it necessary to suggest that unless differences be-
tween Army, Navy, and Marines were wiped out, it might be
advisable to put all the forces in identical uniforms with the
words **U. S. Pacific Forces" printed on the shirts.

I became convinced that the Navy s traditional feeling about
the Army—and possibly vice versa— would have to be drastically
modified before real co-operation would be possible. The
'Tranklin Field mentality," a hangover from football rivalry-,
would have to disappear. The feeling was much less intense
among the reserve officers in both branches and practically
nonexistent among the enlisted men.

I concluded that a single, unified command was absolutely
essential if we were going to win the war with the smallest
possible expenditure of lives; and that possibly it would even-
tually become necessary to put all our services into one com-
mon uniform, with the same ranks and the same pay. By the
end of the year, almost all of them were in the same uniform-
khaki shirts and pants in tropical climates.

The ideal solution, I believe, would be a single fighting force
organized along the lines of the U.S. Marines, with the
Marines* pride and devotion in their service to their country,
and with their efficiency and lack of pretense, red tape, and
snobbery.

About three weeks out of Honolulu on the carrier, we
rendezvoused one sunshiny Sunday afternoon with a tremen-
dous force of ships. I counted nearly ninety vessels stretched
to the horizon on all sides; two carriers beside our own, cruisers,
destroyers, a modern battleship, transports, tankers, and fleet
auxiliaries. It was the biggest thrill of the warl Everybody on
board was excited. When we saw die transports we knew that
it was to be a landing operation. Most of the crew guessed that
we were going to make a headlong, all-out attack on Truk,
Japan's biggest base in the Mandated Islands; or at least try to

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capture Rabaul, the key to Australia, New Guinea, and the
neighboring islands.

A few days later we found out that our objective was the
southeastern part of the Solomon Islands. (See map at end of
book.)

Looking at the map of the Solomons and the Jap positions
there, many of the younger oflBcers decided that our plan of
attack was limited by overconservatism. . Hitting that limited
area, we would leave Jap bases all around us.

**It seems like sending ten men on a football team around
the left end, and the ball carrier around the right," one aviator
said.

Anyway, there it was. And at least it was an offensive.

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IHE transports with us were carrying Marine raiders who
had undergone months of special trainings They were to oc-
cupy and hold part of the north shore of Guadalcanal Island,
where the Japs were completing an airfield, and the small
islands of Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, which lay twenty
miles north of Guadalcanal across sheltered waters.

The Japs had other bases in the Solomons, the nearest only
125 miles from Guadalcanal, but we were not going to attack
them immediately.

Our offensive had been well timed, as the airfield was almost
ready for operation and the area was not yet strongly de-
fended. But, except for photographs furnished by Army bomb-
ers operating from the New Hebrides— an outstanding example
of the importance of Army-Navy co-operation— we did not
have an abundance of advance information about the Japan-
ese defenses in the Solomons or the islands themselves. The
only reference work aboard our carrier had been written in
1911, but the Navy had some modern charts.

We began our run-in to the Solomons on the night of
August 6. That afternoon was the crucial period, just as the
afternoon before the Pearl Harbor attack had been crucial for
the Japanese. At Pearl Harbor they had escaped detection, but
going into Midway they were sighted and sunk. As far as we
knew, no enemy plane or submarine had yet seen our force.

The weather was highly favorable for our run-in. The skies
were overcast until after four in the afternoon, when we knew
that the last Jap patrol plane would have to turn back to its
base. Then the skies began to clear and the setting sun shone
brightly on our tremendous armada— the greatest ever as-
sembled in the Pacific— as the ships plowed steadily along
through a smooth sea.

328

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Once during the afternoon there was an alarm of an ap-
proaching plane and we went to general quarters, with the
crews manning their guns.

I walked along the flight deck at sundown. The anticipation
of battle seemed to have heightened perceptions. The evening
star gleamed brighter than it had during the long monotonous
days since we left Pearl Harbor; the air seemed cleaner and
fresher; the deck crews were working faster as they gassed and
armed the planes and loaded torpedoes and bombs.

I went down for a shower after a serve-yourself supper of a
sandwich and a cup of chocolate. Gordon Sherwood, Syd
Bottomley, Red McNair, Freddie Schroeder, and several other
pilots were crowded into our room, chatting with far more
animation than usual, and from Robbie Robinson s room
across the passageway a phonograph was alternately playing
two pieces: "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," and
then "Las Golondrinas," the stirring Mexican song of fare-
well. Down the passageway, Al Wright, Bill Henry, and some
of the younger pilots were listening to an impromptu per-
formance by a swing band of Filipino mess attendants.

The pilots gathered in the wardroom for a brief, final study
of the already familiar maps of the Tulagi-Guadalcanal area.
Night after night they had attended "skull sessions" at which
they had learned their assignments for the attack. Our planes
were to knock out the Jap Air Force in the Guadalcanal-
Tulagi area and cover the Marine landings.

After the pilots had turned in. Jack Singer and I sat up and
pounded our typewriters a while and then walked and talked
on the dark flight deck until 2 A.M. Our transports and their
escorting cruisers had already left us, to begin their speedy
approach to the landing areas, but we could see in faint out-
line the other carriers and escort vessels in our task forces.

Jack and I had wanted to fly in dive bombers on the first at-
tack, and we had practiced shooting the SBD machine guns at
towed targets. But it was decided that inasmuch as we were

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supposedly "nonbelligerents"— and also because the dive-
bomber pilots valued their necks— the regular machine
gunner-radiomen should fly in the SBD s and Jack and I would
go in the extra observer's seat in Grumman Avengers in the
second wave of attack planes. By the time of the second at-
tack it would be light enough to see what was going on.

No reporters had yet flown in combat in the Pacific, but
Jack and I felt sure we would come through the operations.
''It's just one of those things that you know/' Jack said. "I'm
absolutely certain I'm not going to get killed out here. I can
see myself eating a big steak at Toots Shor's back in New York."

The deck crews were still working when we finally turned
in. It was only a couple of hours later when general quarters
sounded. Jack and I had been accustomed to sleeping through
the usual morning alerts despite the noise of planes taking off
above our heads, but this morning our roommates shook us
out of a groggy sleep.

The planes were already warming up when I reached the
flight deck, the blue flashes of their exhausts punctuating the
roar of many motors. A fresh, strong breeze blew in our faces,
and a quarter-moon cast a warm glow along the broad deck.

Swiftly the minutes sped by, and soon the horn on the flight
bridge bellowed the take-off signal. I climbed to a 5-inch gun
gallery overlooking the deck. Commander LeRoy Simpler,
commander of the fighter squadron, squared his Wildcat away
in the take-off position and sped down the deck between the
twin rows of runway lights. As soon as he was in the air he
switched on his wingtip lights. Quickly the other planes
climbed aloft after him and soon the air was filled with cir-
cling lights as the fighter, dive-bomber, and torpedo planes
felt their way into position behind their squadron leaders.

One dive bomber crashed into the sea alongside of us; an-
other accidentally dropped his bombs a few hundred yards
ahead of the ship and bright orange flashes flew up as it hit
the water. Dawn was breaking when the last plane took off.

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It was fully light when I climbed into the seat of a torpedo
plane behind Lieutenant Bruce Harwood, a big, easygoing
pilot who was itching for hb first action of the war*

**Hope they leave us something to hit/' he said over the
interplane microphone. Over the radio we could hear the
pilots of our advance attack group talking as they circled
over Guadalcanal and Tulagi, searching out targets. The
fighters strafed the field and supplies along the beach; and the
SBD's were diving on anti-aircraft gun emplacements. A num-
ber of float Zeros and patrol planes had been caught on the
water and destroyed by machine-gun fire. Not a single Jap
plane got into the air.

Our first dive bombers were already coming back when we
took off. Bruce climbed fast and circled while our machine
gunners test-fired their guns and the other planes in our
squadron got into position on our wingtips. Overhead the
sky was clear, and in the distance we could see the mountains
of Guadalcanal through a thick layer of white clouds.

Flying over the sharply sloping mountains we heard our
group commander giving orders to the planes attackii^ Tulagi
and Guadalcanal. We circled down through the clouds and
came out over the north shore of Guadalcanal. Beneath the
overcast we saw our invasion force of transports, cruisers, and
destroyers bunched off Guadalcanal and ofE Tulagi, dimly dis-
cernible in the distance.

Guadalcanal looked almost as familiar as Honolulu. We
quickly located the Jap runway, stretching from behind the
coconut groves lining the channel shore back to the foothills
of the jungle-covered mountains. The brown landing strip
ran from northeast to southwest, with three thousand feet
already surfaced and steel hangars partly completed.

Two miles west of the runway the island jutted sharply at
Lunga Point, and there and at near-by Kukoom, Japanese huts
and stores were blazing from fires set by our dive bombers.
East of the airfield open stretches of flat grassy plane divided

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the jungle areas which extended from the coconut trees to the
foothills.

We circled the airfield and watched one of our cruisers fir-
ing, its guns spitting blue flame. The shells hit in trenches
near the landing field, throwing up sharp clouds of black dirt.

Out near the transports hundreds of Marine landing boats
circled and then headed shoreward. We saw the first one hit
the beach at Tenaru plantation at exactly 9:10 A.M., and the
first Marines jump out with rifles at the ready. But there was
no opposition. Most of the Japanese on Guadalcanal were
labor troops and they took to the hills when our planes at-
tacked. Our Marines came ashore quickly and their tanks
were soon pushing cautiously inland through a clearing lead-
ing to the Tenaru River and the airfield.

Bruce circled low over the airfield, followed by our other
planes and waiting for orders from the group commander
flying overhead in his dive bomber.

Finally the order came, ''Bruce, go over and get a bunch of
Japs hiding in the woods down there off the runway."

I got a tremendous thrill out of watching the bright blue
flash of our bombs bursting in the woods. There was no way
for me to express my emotion except to write in my notebook.
When we got back to the carrier that day, I found I had
scribbled over and over again: '*Hit 'em. Hit the bastards.
Kill the lousy Japs."

Meanwhile we kept circling the field, looking for new
targets, flying so low that when our bombs landed the plane
jumped from the concussion. Throughout the morning, as
our planes circled triumphant and powerful over their heads,
the Marines kept coming ashore. I spotted two targets for
Bruce: one an anti-aircraft gun firing from a comer of the
woods behind the airfield; and the other a pile of stores on
the beach near Kukoom with a Japanese flag flying from a
tower above them.

I passed Bruce a note around the corner of his seat, and after

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our last bombs had been dropped he took me back over the
Marine landing beach, where the Higgins boats were putting
ashore more troops and supplies. We were just above their
heads, but the Marines never looked up at us. I realized how
reassuring it must be for them to know that all the planes in
the sky were friendly.

That afternoon, however, they got their first taste of enemy
planes. We had gone back to our carrier to refuel and while
we were there an alarm came that Jap dive bombers had left
Rabaul and were speeding in our direction. I decided to re-
main on the carrier to see if we were attacked.

The Japs fiew straight for our transports in the channel be-
tween Tulagi and Guadalcanal. The dive bombers came in at
nine thousand feet. Our patrolling fighters were flying at ten
thousand and they jumped the dive bombers. Then some
escorting Zeros dived on our Wildcats. Our planes shot down
fourteen of the Japs, and we lost nine fighters. Only two of our
ships were damaged.

Next morning I flew in to Tulagi with Lieutenant Harold
Larsen in his torpedo plane. The marines were meeting bitter,
last-ditch resistance on Tulagi and on the near-by island of
Tanambogo. It was the same kind of fighting we had faced on
Bataan and later faced in New Guinea.

As on the previous day our planes were carrying bombs in-
stead of torpedoes. Clouds hung low over Tulagi and the mists
were brightened by rainbows of unusual shapes and sizes. I re-
called Captain Ramsey's remark when we had left Pearl
Harbor under a similar tropical rainbow. Here was the end
of that rainbow; and at the end of it we bombed the Japs on
Tanambogo and Tulagi to give support to the Marines.

The Marine shock troops— the ''Raiders*'— were more than
a match for the Japs. Armed with tommy guns, grenades, bayo-
nets, knives, and bravery, the Marines calmly and coolly fought
their way across the mile-long, quarter-mile-wide island of
Tulagi. Supported by shelling from our ships, the Marines

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wiped out the last Jap after two days of fighting and firmly
consolidated their hold on Tulagi and the near-by islands.

On Guadalcanal they reached the airport and seized it
within two days. One day later it was ready for our planes.

Everything went well those first two days of the landing.
The Japs came back on the afternoon of August 8 with
torpedo planes, but twenty-one out of twenty-four of them
were blasted out of the air by our fighters and the anti-aircraft
guns of ships in the channel. The Japs never located our
carriers.

The afternoon of August 8, aboard the carrier, I heard that
a small Jap warship force was coming down toward Guadal-
canal. Army and Navy reconnaissance planes reported that it
consisted of two or three cruisers and a couple of destroyers.

One of the torpedo plane pilots came to me. '*Get your life
jacket and helmet," he said. "Maybe we'll be taking off soon to
hit those babies. They seem to be well within range. Here we
are with three quarters of the striking power of the U.S. Fleet
and those guys have the nerve to come down with a handful
of ships. It hasn't been decided yet whether we'll send in
surface ships or planes, but whichever it is well hand them a
licking. Better be ready to take off with us if you want to see
the fun."

But the planes never took off. When all the planes were back
aboard that evening our carriers and their screening ships
turned around and headed south. The following morning they
were still heading south. The planes were launched and flew
as far as the south shore of Guadalcanal Island, but by that
time the Japanese had attacked and their ships were safely
speeding back to Rabaul, undamaged, after striking one of
tlie most devastating blows in the Pacific war.

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IN MANY ways, the Battle of Savo Island on the morning
of August 9 was as disastrous for the United States as the Pearl
Harbor attack eight months and two days before. It delayed
our whole schedule for further attacks in the Solomons, took
the initiative out of our hands, and put us in a defensive posi-
tion which we were still maintaining at the end of the first
year of war.

At Savo Island we lost permanently sunk the cruisers
Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes plus the Australian cruiser
Canberra. The loss of life was never announced but both di-
rectly, in ships' crews killed, and indirectly, in Marines who
lost their lives as a result of failure to land their supplies, it
was very large.

From aerial reconnaissance reports on the afternoon of
August 8, it had been decided that the approaching Japanese
ships could not reach the vicinity of our vessels until daylight
the following morning. Our cruisers which had gone in the
Tulagi-Guadalcanal area to cover the Marine landings were
deployed across the entrance to the harbor. The Canberta and
an American cruiser steamed back and forth between Savo
Island, at the mouth of the harbor area and Guadalcanal, while
the Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes patrolled the northern
channel between Savo and Florida Island, Several destroyers
were out in front of the cruisers, but their radio equipment
failed to detect the Japanese ships.

The enemy vessels slipped in among our cruisers at 1:55
A.M., made a circle of Savo Island from south to north, and
sped out again. As they had done in the Java Sea Battle, the
Japanese used cruiser planes to drop flares which silhouetted
our ships for their gunners.

Our crews were not at general quarters, and the first the)

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knew of the presence of the Japanese was when torpedoes and
shells crashed into their ships. The Quincy and Vincennes
were blown up and sank within a few minutes; the Astoria
and Canberra were so badly damaged that they went down the
next morning. The crews never had a chance to fight for their
lives.

The news of these losses was, quite justifiably, withheld
from the American public for some time, for there was no
way that the Japanese could be absolutely certain of how
amazingly successful they had been. It is true that during the
battle some of our ships opened up with their radios and de-
scribed in uncoded English exactly what was going on, but
there was always a possibility that the Jap ships had not inter-
cepted these reports.

However, once the losses had been announced there was no
justification for attempting to lighten the disaster by claiming
that it was a partial victory. Three months after the battle,
high officials in Washington were still asserting that the Japs
had not achieved their objectives because they had not con-
tinued on into the Guadalcanal-Tulagi area and attacked our
transports.

The truth was that the Japs accomplished their objectives
without sinking the transports, for the transports never were
fully unloaded.

The transports stayed in the harbor all day Sunday, August
9, unloading supplies. All their troops were already ashore.
But that night all the transports upped anchor and scattered
from the Solomons to various parts of the South Pacific. Some
of them were still almost fully loaded. Only approximately
one fifth of the supplies for the Marines was put ashore, and
consequently the landing forces were short of gasoline, bombs,
bullets, airplane parts, food, and medicine for many weeks.
During those weeks the Japs succeeded in landing reinforce-
ments on Guadalcanal and it was not until sometime later-

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almost too late— that our own transports returned again an(}
put ashore supplies and infantry reinforcements for our battle
weary Marines.

Despite the fact that air power had won every victory in
tlie Pacific up to that time, our Marines were put ashore at
Guadalcanal without any provision for air protection after the
afternoon of August 8, when our carriers withdrew to the
south. The Guadalcanal airfield, which was renamed Hender-
son Field, was put into shape for airplane operations within
three days after the Marines landed, but it was not until
August 20 that the first planes— eighteen fighters and eleven
dive bombers ferried from Honolulu— were put ashore.

While the American public was being fed reports of our
growing airplane construction and accepting those reports
as accurate, the startling fact was that eight months after the
start of the war our Navy in the Pacific could get only twenty-
nine planes to send into Guadalcanal, and those arrived nearly
two weeks after the landing!

Also, there were no torpedo boats sent into Guadalcanal
until many weeks after the occupation, although those hard-
hitting craft had proved their value in the Philippines and
the waters around the Solomons were ideal for torpedo boat
operation.

The Japs took immediate advantage of this situation. Un-
opposed, they landed about one thousand troops on the north
shore of Guadalcanal on August 18 and advanced to within
two miles of Henderson Field before they were wiped out by
Marine machine guns and tanks.

Meanwhile, our vast task force was too far away to give
air or sea support to the Marines, but when the small carrier
with the Marine planes arrived from Honolulu we moved
back up to the vicinity of Guadalcanal and waited for the Japs
to make a major attempt to retake the islands we had captured.
Reconnaissance planes spotted the Japanese coming south-

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ward in three strong forces on August 23. With two carriers
we steamed out to meet and fight them about 1 50 miles north
of Malaita Island in the southeastern Solomons.

At lasti Our long-awaited carrier battle was just over the
horizon.

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OHORTLY after lunch on August 23 all pilots of the scout-
ing, bombing and torpedo squadrons were summoned to the
wardroom. I put on my yellow life jacket, grabbed my helmet,
and after unsuccessfully searching for Jack Singer (it turned
out later that he was sitting in one of the gun galleries) went
down to join the pilots. Lieutenant Harold (Swede) Larsen,
skipper of the torpedo squadron, signaled me to come sit with
his pilots at their long dining table, covered now with a green
cloth.

Commander Don Felt, the group commander who con-
trolled the airplanes in flight and flew a dive bomber himself,
pointed to the blackboard, 'TBY's have sighted an enemy
force of eight ships, cruisers and destroyers, widiin striking
range of our planes and headed for Guadalcanal." The pilots
wrote on their charts the disposition, location, and course of
the Jap ships*

Felt, who was older than most of his pilots— slim, dark, and
a fighter— went on: **The PBY's are looking for the Jap car-
riers that must be somewhere near by. There is no doubt that
the Japs are about to make a major effort to recapture Guadal-
canal and the other islands. I hope that we will be ordered
to attack them today. The weather is very bad but we will try
to find them.

**Both scouts and bombers will carry one-thousand-pound
bombs. Torpedo planes have been loaded with one-ton tor-
pedoes. Let's make every bomb and torpedo count!"

The waiting seemed interminable. It was nearly two hours
later when the telephone on the wall rang. Felt turned away
from it with a satisfied grin. ''Let's go, boys! No carriers have
been found. We will attack the cruisers.*'

At the last minute I decided to change the short-sleeved

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Australian army shirt I was wearing. If we should be forced
down and have to drift around in the ocean, it would be wise
to be protected against the sun. By the time I got back up on
deck the first scout bomber was already in the air and other
planes were taxiing one by one to the take-off position. I
slipped and crawled past the murderously whirling props,
clinging to the wings of planes, back to the rear of the deck
where the big Grumman torpedo planes were warming up.
Somebody gave me a hand up onto the wing of ''Number lo."
Swede Larsen cut his throttle a little while I climbed into the
seat behind him.

Our motor revved up faster now. I fastened my parachute,
plugged in my earphones, and struggled with die safety belt.
Up to this time I had never been able to get a safety belt fas-
tened properly before a take-off and Swede warned me to
adjust it right. Otherwise, if we hit the water in our take-off,
I would almost certainly be knocked out and unable to get out
of the plane. A hundred times, both in the torpedo planes and
in my imagination, I practiced what to do if we hit the water.
The directions were printed on the handle which released the
glass cockpit, and every time I got in one of the planes I re-
hearsed the motions.

Over the radio Swede called the radio man, who was in the
gun turret behind me, and the tunnel gunner down in the rear
of the plane.

''All set, Johnson?^'

"Yes, Mr. Larsen."

"Okay, Conrad?'*

"Aye-aye, sir."

"You okay, Clark?"

"Except for this damn' safety belt— okay, I got it. All set.
Swede."
"Okay."

Swede maneuvered skillfully down the deck to the take-off
position. A horn blew in our ears as he pushed the lever which

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swings the folding wings out into position. He stepped hard
on the brakes and squared the plane around. Over the wing
I saw the *Tly I" officer. Lieutenant Commander Wagner,
with his black and white checkered flag and yellow helmet.
Beside him was a member of the deck crew, standing in the
position of an umpire calling a baseball runner *'out" on a
close play at first. His upturned thumb meant that our flaps
were lowered to give us more lift in the take-oflE; tires okay,
tail hook up and locked. Everything set.

Wagner shook his flag faster and faster, as if trying to keep
pace with our speeding motor. Swede took a last quick look at
his instruments and nodded at Wagner. "Fly I" swung his arm
down in a decisive sweep— the signal to go. Swede stepped off
the brakes and we rolled down the deck, quickly gathering
speed. Our tail came up within a few yards. As we passed the
flight bridge I waved to Robinson and Burke, Flynn and
McMahon, Doc Bowers and Bill Godwin. Before we reached
the end of the long deck we were already air-borne.

We went up in a fast climb, and the other planes lined up
on us. Swede was in the center with the torpedo planes, and
Don Felt flew a little above and behind us. Stretched out to
the right were the planes of the scouting squadron and to the
left those of Bombing Three. Both scouting and bombing
squadrons flew the same planes— Douglas SBD dive bombers—
the planes which, with the Grumman fighters and torpedo
planes, became the front line of America's defense and offense
in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. On their strong, slender
wings depended our country's destiny. They, and not battle-
ships, saved us from invasion.

There were no fighters with us the afternoon of August 23.
That didn't look so good to me. Not having any duties with
controls, radio, or guns, I had time to think over what hap-
pened the last time that torpedo planes went out without
fighters on a similar attack. That was at Midway, and only
four out of forty- three torpedo planes ever got back.

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The weather was thick and dirty. There was a heavy over-
cast at one thousand feet with rain squalls all around our
ships— now looking small and toylike as they scurried along
down on the surface. There was not a sign of sunlight. Minute
by minute, as we flew out on our designated course, the weather
got nastier. In twenty minutes we plunged into a thick storm
front, and then broke through into the clear for a minute or
two. Swede signaled to the torpedo planes flying at our wing
tips to break formation. Frenchy, at the controls of the Grum-
man on our left, grinned back from under his steel helmet as
he bore off a little ways. Bert Earnest pulled away from our
right wing.

Now we were back in the storm. Most of the time our own
wingtips were hidden. Rain pelted the glass hood over the
cockpit and grayish white mist streamed past. Occasionally
we caught a brief glimpse of the ocean, rough and angry as
the winds whipped it. The air was turbulent and I noticed
that our plane seemed to recover normal flying altitude very
slowly after hitting a bump.

Swede called me, "Clark, is your foot by any chance on the
automatic pilot?'*

I pulled back my left foot, quickly and guiltily. "Sorry,
Swede," I answered over the mike, *Tm afraid it was." I
should have known better, having flown in the observer's seat
in the Grummans often enough to become familiar with them.
Trying to get comfortable in the cockpit, which was built for
men smaller than myself, I had stretched out my foot against
the automatic controls.

We flew on— by instrument, for it was impossible to keep in
fairly level flight except with the automatic pilot— for fifty,
sixty, ninety minutes. Two or three times we sighted the
planes nearest to us on right or left, but most of the time we
were in a world of our own. It was a good thing that Swede's
pilots were all experts. Even a slight variation from the desig-
nated compass course and altitude for each individual plane

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might have brought two of them together in the blinding
storm.

Then, gradually, the air around us seemed to grow lighter
and we broke out into a relatively clear area. The clouds were
much higher there, at nearly five thousand feet, and although
the sun was hidden the sea was visible for many miles. All our
planes were in sight. All of them had flown straight and true
through the storm. The dive bombers circled in one area, the
scouts in another, and the torpedo planes joined up behind us.

That was where we expected to find the Japs. We scanned
the sea intently, looking for the wakes of ships, but it was
mirror-calm and unbroken.

Don Felt opened up on the radio. "We'll fly northward for
fifteen minutes more." We flew along, and at the end of fifteen
minutes reached the edge of the clear area and started to
plunge into a new storm. Our gasoline was none too high.

"No use going farther,'' Felt said. "Head for Guadalcanal.
Swede, you take the lead."

On the way back we flew through storm after storm. We
lost sight of the bombers and scouts, but the torpedo planes
stayed close behind us. It was fast getting dark.

"Keep a sharp lookout for land/' Swede warned. We had to
find land— soon, and we had to find clear weather over it oi
take the chance of running into a mountainside.

I strained my eyes looking for land. Finally I sighted it and
called Swede, "There's a small, cone-shaped island off our port
bow, through the mists. And there are a flock of those big
white birds flying past the plane on our starboard."

"Nice going. Thanks," Swede answered.

A few minutes later there was more land, on our right. It
was a long, low island with its low peaks hidden by clouds.
It was one of the Solomons but there was no way of telling
which island, nor which direction from Guadalcanal. The
weather was gradually clearing and the visibility improving.

Off the island to our right we spotted two small shapes that

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looked like ships. Swede dipped his wings, to signal our other
planes, and we went over to look at them.

Swede switched to the interplane radio.

"Prepare to launch torpedoesl" he ordered. "Gunners,
test-fire your machine guns again.'*

The plane shook as our gunners fired a few rounds of tracers
into the sea. When we were almost directly over the shapes
we saw that they were not ships, but small islands. The surf
breaking on their rocky shores had looked like the wakes of
vessels, adding to the illusion.

It was twilight by the time we got back on course, and
Swede switched on his wingtip lights. The other planes did
likewise and we all sped along together through the gathering
dusk, a unit of men and machines looking for home. By this
time there were islands on all sides of us, in the distance, but
we didn't know which was which.

The pilot of the plane on our right pulled up alongside and
signaled with his arm and hand. I told Swede, who called him
on the radio.

"What's up?'*

"I think that is Guadalcanal over to the right, Mr. Larsen/*

*'No," Swede said. "I think it is straight ahead. That must
be Savo Island we are approaching/' It was still raining, but
the clouds were much higher.

We kept on course and in a few minutes flew over the chan-
nel off Savo Island, the graveyard of the Astoria, Vincenncs,
Quincy, and Canberra, and of a good many of their crews.

A few minutes later I spotted the runway on Guadalcanal.
Swede had never been to Guadalcanal— he flew over Tulagi in
our landing operations on August 7 and 8— and he failed to
see the field immediately.

I heard him calling the airfield and requesting radio direc-
tions from the Marines. I was about to pick up my mike and
tell him where the field was when he spotted it himself and
canceled his request. We circled down fast over Lunga Point,

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keeping clear of the path of our dive bombers going in to
land. Rows of flares lined each side of the runway. As we made
our last turn, a Jap machine gun opened up from the woods
above the field. Swede saw its blue tracers at the same time.

"Put on your tin hats back there/' he ordered.

Not having any tin hat, I sat and watched. The tracers were
low and behind us, for the Japs had nothing to aim at except
some speeding light in the darkness. Swede sat the Grumman
down without any waste of time. A Marine climbed up on our
wing and with a flashlight guided us off the runway.

The crews of most of our bombers were already on the
ground, sloshing around happily in the mud after so many
weeks at sea. They were congratulating each other on being
alive, although they regretted not having found the Jap ships.

thought every one of us was a goner," said "Bullet Lou"
Kern, skipper of the scouts. Sherwood, McNair, Elder, Cobb^
Bottomley, Isaman, Soupy Campbell, Fred Schroeder, Bob
Elder, and the others agreed that it was the worst weather they
had ever flown through. Marine ground crews began pushing
and towing our planes back toward the runway to refuel them
in preparation for a take-off at any time. The Marines told
us Jap snipers were in the woods all around the runway, but
gradually were being wiped out.

''These planes sure look good to us," one husky Marine told
me. I understood his feeling perfectly.

Swede and I rode in a Marine jeep to the top of a hill at one
side of the runway. The Japs had built a shelter there and the
Marines took it over. As I might have expected. Commander
Walter Shindler of Admiral Fletcher's staff was there too. We
first met in New Zealand and later we found ourselves fellow
passengers on the carrier. Shindler was conferring with a young
Marine captain in command of the handful of planes stationed
at the field— Grumman fighters, SBD's, and a few Army P-38's.

"There is one Navy amphibian PBY available,'* the Marine
captain said. "We will send it out at midnight to drop flares

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over the eastern channel while a Marine dive bomber scouts
over the west channel."

"If you sight any Jap ships/' Shindler replied, "our pilots
will take oflf and attack/' He turned to Larsen. "Go back to
the pilots, Swede, and pass the word. Tell them to sleep in
their planes."

Commander Shindler took me in another jeep over to meet
General Vandegrift, commander of the Marine forces on
Guadalcanal. While we were riding across the cleared space
surrounding the airfield, a bluish white flare shot up over the
water front at Lunga Point, some two miles away. Then there
was a salvo of shells bursting along the beach.

"That's a Jap sub," the Marine driver explained. "He hangs
around there and comes up about this time every night and
kills a few of our boys. Sure wish we had a destroyer or tw^o
hereabouts to take care of himl"

General Vandegrift's headquarters were in one of a group
of tents in the woods bordering the airfield. The general told
me the Marines had already beaten off one Japanese landing,
killing nearly one thousand Japs who were put ashore on
August 18 from a couple of destroyers and transports. The
Japs were cut to pieces as they tried to cross the Tenaru
River to reach Henderson Field.

"Now, it looks like they are coming down in force," the
general went on. "This show isn't over yet by a long shot. To-
morrow—or maybe tonight— will tell part of the story."

The scene outside the general's tent, with his officers sitting
Around talking and smoking in the darkness, brought back
vivid memories of Bataan. I hoped that the Guadalcanal Amer-
icans would never find themselves like those on Bataan. It was
up to our Navy to keep them from getting into a situation like
that. Our Navy had to bring in supplies for them and break
up the Jap task forces and transports before they ever reached
Guadalcanal.

Through the bamboo wireless Bob Miller of the UP learned

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that I was talking to the general. He came over and gave me
a couple of bottles of captured Asahi beer and a bar of choco-
late, the first of either I had tasted since leaving Honolulu.
In drenching rain Bob took me in a jeep back to the airfield
headquarters, where I found Swede. Together we located our
plane, which had been moved to the end of the runway, and
then sat in one of the hangars-that the Japs had been building
and shared the beer. Swede decided to sleep in his pilot*s
cockpit, sitting up, while I crawled into the rear of "Number
lo*' and curled up around the bombsi^t and machine gun.
I slept so soundly that I didn't even hear the Jap sub when it
came up at 2 A^M. and fired a few more shells into the shore.

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IHE morning sun— and the crackle of rifles— awakened me.
A few yards behind our plane two Marines emerged from the
jungle undergrowth, dragging a trio of badly frightened Japs.
They had surrendered when the smell of the Marines* break-
fast preparations, only a few feet from their hideout, got the
best of their Shinto heroism.

Swede, Elder, and I followed the Marines as they took their
captives over to a wire-enclosed area in the coconut grove.
There were about three hundred Jap prisoners, all but seven
of them in a big enclosure. The seven were locked up sepa-
rately. They were soldiers, in contrast to the others who were
civilian workers.

"It's a cinch to tell the soldiers,'' a tough-looking Marine
guard explained. **They all claim to be civilians, but when we
put a soldier in the big pen he can't resist ordering the others
around. In a few minutes they are waiting on him, and bring-
ing him food and cigarettes. Then out he comes— and into the
soldiers' pen."

It was time for the morning rollcall, and the Japs came out
of the enclosure in groups of five. The recent prisoners were
told to strip off their rain-soaked, tattered clothing and were
given new equipment from a pile of captured supplies. The
Marines examined their purses and found a variety of cur-
rency. Some had two or three hundred Bank of Japan yen;
others had American dollars, and military currency from
China, tlie Philippines, and Malaya. The labor troops had not
been in those places, but had probably obtained the money
by swapping souvenirs with soldiers who served in the China
campaign and fought later in the Philippines or Malaya.

I edged over to the soldiers' enclosure and started to talk to
one of the prisoners in my halting Japanese.

348

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"Tobacco, dozo/' he requested. I gave him a cigarette.

* 'Where are you from?'*

"Kobe/'

"In what places have you fought?*'

Just then the Marine guard came over. "Hey, you can't talk
to those guys!'* He looked like he meant it, so I broke oflE the
interview. We walked back across the muddy runway to our
planes and sat around on gasoline drums. We learned that
we were to return to the carrier shortly. Marine ground crews
were unloading the bombs from our SBD's. The bombs were
to be left behind for the Marines, who were short of gasoline
and ammunition also.

Swede's pilots were standing by their planes— all except
Frenchy who kept wandering off to talk to Marines, inspect
anti-aircraft gun emplacements, and look over the wreckage
of a Grumman Wildcat which had crash-landed a few days
before with its wounded Marine pilot. Swede called him back,
"Frenchy, blast you! Stay within twenty-five feet of your
plane." Frenchy stayed, but he was too full of spirits to be
repressed. He gamboled about on the grass in imitation of a
ballet dancer doing the "Spring Song." The morning air was
fresh and cool, the storm had blown far away to the north,
and sunlight bathed the rugged green peaks of Guadalcanal.

Don Felt taxied his plane to the end of the runway and took
off. The dive bombers followed and then we got into the air,
our wheels throwing up rocks from the rough runway and
peppering our wings. One dive bomber was still on the ground.
Elder was having trouble with his motor, which had become
clogged with carbon yesterday when he flew for some time at
full throttle. After we had reached the edge of Guadalcanal
I looked back and saw Elder take off. But his plane seemed to
be faltering and after a few minutes he turned back and made
an emergency landing. He sat down up-wind, as several of our
planes had done the night before.

Marine fighter pilots escorted us a short distance as we

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climbed up through scattered clouds and headed over Malaita
Island, home of cannibals and of a few hardy missionaries. Far
out over the sea we spotted our task forces, speeding into the
wind and in the direction of the Japs. Long swells were run-
ning but the air was clear and unclouded, with an after-the-
storm freshness.

On board our carrier there was an atmosphere of quiet ex-
citement. It was like the last few seconds before the gong rings
to start a heavyweight championship fight. This was the day,
and no mistake.

I went to the fighter pilot's ready room off the flight deck
to find out what was going on. Little Frank Green, a good-
looking, quiet boy who came from a farm just outside of St.
Louis, gave me the news.

'*Two Jap Kawanishi four-engined seaplanes were shot down
within sight of the ship this morning," he said. ''That means
they radioed our positions to their own bases and ships.''

"Did you get one of them, Frankie?" I asked. Frank had
been having bad luck. He was a natural flier, a great pilot, but
he hadn't gotten any Japs yet. Twice his machine guns had
jammed just as he was going into action.

"No, doggone it," said Frank. "I was patrolling in another
sector.''

"Don't let it worry you, Frank," said Carleton Starkes,
"there'll be plenty of chances." Starkes, who came from
Memphis and whose blond hair was cropped close to his head,
already had three Japs to his credit in the fighting over Guadal-
canal on the afternoons of August 7 and 8. Starkes was my
partner in the nightly bridge games and Jack Singer and I had
nicknamed him "Acey." Singer and I were carrying on a
friendly rivalry. Before the Solomons landings we had each
chosen "teams" of fighter pilots, picking out those we thought
most likely to shoot down the most Japs. Actually, several
dark-horse pilots had won the honors on the 7th and 8th, and
Jack and I had immediately claimed that they had been on our

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team all along. Carleton Starkes was one of the dark horses.

I went down to the wardroom and found Commander Felt.
**Our scouts are out searching for the Jap carriers," he said.
"When they find them we'll take off and attack. Today you'll
get the action youVe been clamoring for."

While we were having brunch— we had been eating mostly
corned beef and rice for several weeks— another Jap patrol
bomber penetrated to within three miles of our force before
our fighters jumped it and literally tore its wings off with their
.50-caliber machine guns. Our pilots loved to spot those
Kawanishis— great lumbering whaleboats with wings on them
and without as many defensive guns as our own PBY s. It was
usually only about fifteen seconds from the time the pilots
reported over the radio, **There he is!" and their triumphant
shout, "There he goes into the drink! A flamerl" I went up to
see who had brought this one down. Frank Green was sitting
in the pilot's ready room, looking disconsolate.

"Doggone," he said, **I was just getting lined up to make
a run on that guy when Dick Gray and Dave Richardson beat
me to it."

I was in the shower, washing off some of the Guadalcanal
mud, when general quarters sounded. Men ran to their battle
stations, closing down hatches and locking the big iron doors
in the interior of the ship. The loud-speaker blared exciting
news:

"Our scout planes have located enemy carrier force about
two hundred miles northwest of us. Our planes will take off to
attack the enemy. Be prepared for an attack on our ships."

Before I could get dressed and up on deck most of our planes
were already in the air. I saw the first torpedo plane speed
away. Lieutenant Bruce Har^vood was at the controls and
Jack Singer was in the observer's seat behind him. Jack and
I had been trying to scoop each other by witnessing a torj^edo-
plane attack. We had agreed that the story would be worth the
slim chance of getting back alive. Yesterday I had gone out and

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we had failed to find the Japs. Today Jack was going and it
was too late for me to get into a plane. Then I saw Swede
Larsen standing on deck, watching the take-offs.

**What's up, Swxde? Aren't you going?"

**No, they are holding us in reserve—the planes that went
into Guadalcanal yesterday. If we get orders to go later I'll let
you know."

**Okay. I'll either be here in the fighter pilots* room or up
on the bridge. Please don't forget to call me."

Our torpedo planes and dive bombers rendezvoused in the
air and quickly disappeared from sight. We followed them
over the radio. Scouts had sighted a huge Jap force, three car-
riers with escort vessels and, over a few miles, a fourth carrier;
and farther away two separate groups, one of transports and
the other of heavy warships. The nearest Jap vessels were about
175 miles from our ships and about the same distance from
Guadalcanal. Jap planes from Rabaul, twin-engined bombers,
were attacking Guadalcanal where Marine pilots took their
Grummans off Henderson Field and shot down twenty-four
enemy ships in a few minutes of flaming action.

In the fighter pilots' ready room we listened to Don Felt
giving orders to our dive bombers and torpedo planes. They
had sighted one Jap carrier. Gordon Sherwood was the first
to see the telltale white wakes of the enemy ships. He reported
it in matter-of-fact tones, * 'There's a carrier over there. Com-
pass bearing three-forty-five degrees. Also a couple of cruisers
and destroyers."

Commander Felt directed: **Lou, you hit the carrier. Gor-
don, take that cruiser over tliere with your section. Bruce,
send the first section of your torpedo planes against the carrier
and the others at that cruiser. Let's go."

The radio was silent for a few minutes. Then Felt spoke:

**Nice going. Got a hit on the carrier."

"Brucel One torpedo hit the cruiser."

**That carrier is slowing down now and burning."

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''Holy smokes! A destroyer alongside the carrier has disap-

Only half our attention was on the radio. We were waiting
momentarily for the Japs to find us. There was a flurry of
movement on deck. Planes were being pushed forward and
two dive bombers were landing. It was Bob Elder, whom we
had left behind at Guadalcanal, and his wing-man, Phil Cobb.
Marines had repaired Elder's engine. Then the planes were
quickly pushed back again, with the fighters in the forward
positions, ready to go.

A few minutes later the bull horn on the flight bridge above
us bellowed and the loud-speaker cracked, 'Tighter pilots,
man your planes!" We knew what that meant. The Jap attack
group was on its way to hit us. The fighter pilots sprinted
to their planes, and swiftly roared down the deck and into the
air, one after another. They climbed sharply, grabbing for
altitude, and headed out toward the approaching enemy.

Swede Larsen ran by me, followed by Frenchy and his other
pilots. Only Swede had his chart with him. The others didn't
have even helmets, goggles, or gloves. I grabbed my life jacket
and tin helmet and started to run after Swede.

"No use coming," he gasped over his shoulder. "We are just
going up to circle the ship." Swede s planes took off, followed
by Elder and Cobb. A few minutes after they got in the air the
radio ordered them out to search for the other Jap carriers.
Once more I had missed my chance to participate in a torpedo
attack. But the Japs were on their way and there might be just
as good a story on board. I ran up the ladder to the topmost
bridge and stood next to Commander Shindler, who had come
back with us from Guadalcanal and was scanning the sky with
his binoculars. He, Admiral Fletcher, and the other officers
wore blue "anti-flash" suits as a protection against bomb
blasts.

Our ships picked up speed. Within a few minutes our carrier
was bulling through the water at close to thirty knots as the

peared. A torpedo must have hit it.

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engineers poured the oil into her. Our escort vessels were
keeping pace.

In the long heavy swells the destroyers were bouncing
almost out of the water, lifting their bows so high that you
could see the horizon under them and then plunging down
so far that white spray splashed over their topmasts.

Another carrier was a few miles over, racing like ourselves
—one of our best defenses was speed— to try to dodge at least
some of the Jap bombs. While we were waiting for the planes
to come, I had a momentary flash of the old, familiar feeling
of fear. Then it disappeared. After all, if the planes hit us, the
chances were ten to one against being killed. I had wanted to
see action at sea, and here it was.

It came quickly and was over with incredible speed. There
was an air of unreality about it. It seemed like something
seen on a movie screen, with the action moving at twice normal
speed.

There was a puff of smoke in the air beyond our other car-
rier and then a long plume of smoke trailing into the sea,
where it suddenly snuffed out. Then another, and another Jap
plane plunged in flames, until the air was full of those long
trailers of smoke. Our fighters were doing their work.

The decks of the carrier and her escorting vessels seemed
to burst into flame as the anti-aircraft guns opened up. The
sky blossomed with the black and yellow bursts of their ex-
ploding shells. Planes flashed through the smoke puffs, the
sunlight glinting on their wings.

Out of nearly fifty dive bombers in the attacking force, only
ten reached the point where they could push over to dive on
the carrier.

The first Jap dive bomber nosed over and down. Anti-air-
craft bursts surrounded it, and it disintegrated with a brilliant
flash. Another plunged flaming into the sea alongside the
deck, its bomb exploding as it hit the water.

Then a bomb burst squarely on the carrier's flight deck. A

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long streamer of smoke trailed out to the rear of the still
speeding ship. Another bomb hit, plunged down into the
hangar deck, and exploded. Near misses splashed the crews as
they ran to drag out fire hoses and fight the flames.

The lookout standing beside me on the bridge tensed sud-
denly. He called into his telephone, "Dive bombers overhead
coming down out of sun." Then a second later, "Torpedo
planes coming in from port quarter." But those planes were
our own fighters coming aboard. The first crashed into the
barrier, and its pilot, red-haired Lieutenant Chick Harmer,
limped out with three bullet holes in his legs. Deck crews
pushed his wrecked plane into the sea.

The other fighters hurried aboard in relays, refueled, and
got back into the air. But there was no need for haste— the
battle was over, for us.

We counted noses in the fighter pilots' room. Lieutenant
Marion Dufilho was missing, and Ensign Bass. One other plane
had not turned up.

I went over to Frank Green. "How many did you get,
Frankie?" Frank looked sick. "As usual, nothing happened. I
was assigned to combat patrol over our ship and the Japs nevei
got this far."

Starkes had shot down three planes, Jensen three. Chief
Machinist's Mate Runyon had shot down four Jap planes
three dive bombers and one Zero.

Our own attack group and planes from the other carrier,
came in to land. Our deck was quickly crowded with planes
and others were still circling in the air. But Bill Godwin, our
signal officer, was bringing the planes in so quickly and skill-
fully that only a few ran out of gas and sat down in the water.
Destroyers picked up the crews, hurrying to get them aboard
before night fell.

Not a single one of the planes that had gone out with Don
Felt was missing. Jack Singer climbed shakily out of Bruce
Harwood's torpedo plane. He had scooped me and had one of

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the best stories of the war. I congratulated him, both for his
story and on being aHve. It was almost Jack's last story. A short
time later he was killed when the Wasp was torpedoed and
sunk.

Swede Larsen was still missing, but about three hours after
dark he came aboard. Frenchy, who had been doing a gay
**Spring Dance" on the Guadalcanal airfield that morning,
failed to come back with him. We gave him up for dead, but
a week later he was picked up from a small island where he had
crash-landed after dark. Elder was missing too. He was one of
my favorite pilots, a tall, handsome youngster whose father
owned a hardware store in Milwaukie, Oregon.

I cornered Swede. "What did you hit?"

"We looked for the three Jap carriers but couldn't find them.
About fifteen minutes before sunset we sighted a Jap battle-
ship of the Mutsu class with an escort of six heavy cruisers,
six light cruisers, and four or more destroyers. Elder saw them
at the same time. He and Cobb dived on the battleship, and
got at least one hit. We attacked the cruiser and put one fish
in her. Elder saw it hit. Tm sorry he is missing."

Just then Elder walked into the wardroom with Cobb. "I got
lost but the Lord was with me," Elder said. **We should have
run out of gas some time ago. We made it with about the last
drop in our tanks."

Doctor Lewis passed out the small bottles of brandy that
are given to the aviators after they have been in combat. I rated
one because of my flight the day before. There was just enough
in the bottles to make the pilots relax. Bit by bit their excited
chatter died down, and one by one they went off to * 'crawl in
the sack" and sleep until time for their patrols next morning.

Next day the officers tallied results. Ninety-six planes had
been shot down by our Navy pilots, the Marines over Guadal-
canal, and our anti-aircraft fire. Three Navy and three Marine
fighter pilots were missing; plus Frenchy and one other torpedo

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plane pilot from our carrier. Naval Aviation Pilot Corl— one
of the three torpedo-plane pilots who survived the Midway
Battle— had been shot down by Zeros. He had flown off the
other carrier.

One small Jap carrier was dead in the water and burning.
In addition to the carrier, which was either the Ryujo or
Hosho, one Jap destroyer, a cruiser, and a transport had been
sunk, and many other ships damaged.

Our attack planes had failed to establish contact with the
three big Jap carriers, but their torpedo planes and dive
bombers had also failed to find us, with the exception of the
small group that hit our other carrier. Our pilots reported that
the Jap pilots were definitely inferior to those they had fought
at Midway and in the Coral Sea.

The Japs had lost so many planes that they were forced to
turn back to Truk to replenish their carrier air groups. Their
first major attempt to retake the Solomons had been beaten
back— but not for long. They struck back soon with character-
istic vigor and viciousness, in a prolonged series of attacks that
threatened to make Guadalcanal another Wake or Bataan.

During those weeks our Navy was consistently on the de-
fensive in the Solomons. There were no ships out in front of
our Marines to break up the Jap attacks. Planes fought val-
iantly but they were too few to prevent the Japs landing rein-
forcements. Part of the time they were pinned to the ground by
the lack of gasoline and bombs— still an aftermath of the Savo
Island Battle. Night after night Jap warships steamed with im-
punity into the channel off Guadalcanal and poured shells into
the airfield and into our beach positions. Jap transports landed
more and more troops, until the Marines were finally out-
numbered. The Japs pushed so close to Henderson Field that
their artillery pitched shells onto the runway and our pilots
had to take off and land between shell bursts. A campaign that
had started out to be a cheap, quick victory was beginning to
look as if it would become a disastrous defeat.

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Then, just in time, our admirals got busy. Transports suc-
cessfully ran into the Solomons and landed some Army troops
and, more important, gasoline for our planes. Finally, we
recovered from the Savo Island disaster and began to take the
initiative. I believe the change dated from the appointment of
Admiral William F. Halsey as commander in chief of our
South Pacific forces. The old idea of "we can't go there because
the Japs are there," was replaced by Halsey s watchword, **At-
tack: Repeat: Attack."

Halsey was the kind of leader our sailors could understand
and love. He made no secret of the fact that he— like every
other courageous man— knew what it was to be afraid. He was
not ashamed to show his fear when bombs crashed down on
his carrier. He knew that war was brutal and tough, but that
it had to be fought and that it would be won only by attack-
not defense. The sailors knew that Halsey meant what he said.
When he told the crew on his battered carrier, '*Boys, I am so
proud of you I could cry," they saw real tears trickling down
his cheeks. Halsey was the man for the job.

He was all the United States Navy needed. The Navy had
always had the guns and the gunners and the guts, it had the
ships and it could shoot. It needed the confidence that comes
with knowledge that you are attacking and not retreating;
fighting aggressively instead of defensively.

Only once since Savo Island had the Navy slugged it out
with the Japs, on the night of October 11-12 when die Boise
fought gallantly and successfully against great odds. Then a
month later, on the night of November 13, Rear Admiral
Daniel J. Callaghan led a force of cruisers between two groups
of Japanese surface ships and fought it out to a finish against
a Jap battleship and other heavy vessels at point-blank range.
Callaghan was killed and his flagship, the cruiser San Francisco,
damaged and other of our ships sunk, but we won the fight
and the Japs turned back.

Between those two surface battles there had been another

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carrier fight late in October. One of our carriers, the Hornet^
was bombed and sunk, but several Jap carriers were badly
damaged and possibly sunk; and that time, too, the Japs were
forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, between August and early October, Guadal-
canal had been held despite the lack of surface support by our
naval vessels. It was held by Navy and Marine dive bombers
and fighters— when they had the gasoline to fly— and it was held
by exhausted, often hungry Marines, who killed Japs, and
more Japs, and still more Japs until they were sick of killing.
Planes, now amply supplied with gasoline, bombs and tor-
pedoes, had provided the killing blow that smashed the big
Jap attacks on November 11-15. Planes had sunk eight of
twelve transports and had sent to the bottom the cruisers and
battleships damaged by our ships in the night action on the
13th. Planes, and Marines, had held Guadalcanal.

That part of the action in the Solomons I followed through
the newspapers back home. After our air battle on August 24,
our carrier had gone back to the southeast of the Solomons to
await another Jap offensive. There was a letdown aboard, and
we were just counting the days until we would have to put into
port to reprovision, Charles McMurtry and Jack Rice had
come out from Pearl Harbor on other ships, so The AP was
covered and I was free to leave. We figured that within two
weeks at the most we would head for some port to pick up food,
gasoline, plane parts, and ammunition. Meanwhile we were
riding around waiting for something to happen. Something
did shortly.

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44

When reporters leave Pearl Harbor on fleet assignments
they tell their friends they are *'going fishing/* The crew of
our ship, when we were milling around apparently aimlessly,
would jokingly remark that we were headed for "Torpedo
Junction to keep a date with a submarine." On August 31 we
arrived at Torpedo Junction and caught our fish.

Two Jap submarines crept in close to our screening force
and fired four torpedoes at us. We knew subs were in the
vicinity. They had been spotted early in the morning by de-
tector devices; and again a half hour later. The ship had been
speeded up briefly when planes were launched for the morn-
ing search. Then torpedo wakes were sighted. A young junior
grade lieutenant was on the bridge and he did everything
right: sounded general quarters, swung the ship, and called
the captain.

I was asleep when the torpedo hit us, at 7:48 A.M. There
was no mistaking what it was. The ship shook like a house in
a severe earthquake. The chair in our room slammed over
onto the floor; bottles and glasses fell out of the cabinet over
the wash basin. Before they hit the deck I was out of bed and
dressing. In a couple of minutes I had reached the flight deck.

The carrier was beginning to lose speed and within a few
minutes the giant ship was dead in the water under a leaden,
but clearing, sky. Our escort cruisers stopped with us. Every
eye in the task force was watching for torpedo wakes and the
cruisers were ready to intercept the torpedoes with their own
hulls, if necessary, to keep them from hitting the carrier.

Destroyers raced back and forth on our starboard side a
mile away, hunting the subs that had hit us. A destroyer would
halt, like a race horse suddenly reined in, then seem to gather
itself together and sprint for a few hundred yards like a spurred

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horse. Depth charges from the destroyers shook our ship, and
it was beginning to list to starboard.

Jack Singer came walking along the sloping flight deck.

"It looks like we'll get in sooner than we expected/' he said.

Both he and I were carrying watertight rubber packages
in which, weeks before, we had enclosed copies of our stories
and other papers in the event of our having to swim.

"Let s pray their bombers don't find us now," I said. And
Jack looked at the sky and murmured, "Amenl"

Miraculously, no one was dead. The two fire rooms where
the torpedo had exploded were empty at the time. Oil was
splattered over the flight deck and the planes on the starboard
side, and the crews were busy cleaning it. One man slipped and
broke his leg. He was the only casualty.

A half hour before, the carrier had been one of the greatest
fighting ships in the world, its massed planes on deck a symbol
of tensed strength and terrible power. Now it was wounded
and crippled; its strength gone; its planes a helpless target.

Men walked aimlessly about the flight deck, conversing
quietly in small groups. Every few minutes somebody looked
nervously at his watch and began to estimate how soon the big
Jap bombers would arrive from Rabaul. Singer and I couldn't
resist kidding our fliers who up to then had insisted that big
bombers couldn't hit anything from high altitudes. "Oh," they
explained, "this is different. We are lying here helpless and
they might get a lucky hit on a target this big."

Down in the damaged control room, where huge electric
cables had been short-circuited by the shock of the torpedo,
trained men were working swiftly. From time to time, Com-
mander Henry Grady, the veteran and hardy chief engineer
who had been within a few months of retirement when the
war started, came up from below and hurried up to the bridge
to report to Admiral Fletcher. He would slip us a few words
as he passed, "Doesn't look so good." And, on a subsequent
trip, "Maybe we can get her going after all!"

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Two hours after we had been hit, the loud-speaker boomed:
"Great number of unidentified planes approaching/* Men
scurried for their steel helmets and ran to their battle stations.
The destroyers were still racing around, dropping depth
charges. A big oil slick was pouring out of the wound in our
side.

A few minutes later, the loud-speaker announced, "Those
planes are army B-i7*s." The entire ship seemed to gasp with
relief.

Finally, late in the morning, Chief Grady got the engines
turning over again. The ship limped ahead at three knots, so
slowly that we could scarcely trace our movement through the
water. The engineers trimmed the ship, and the flight deck
leveled out. Then the speed gradually increased, up to eight
knots, and the ship headed into the wind.

Our pilots had been told to prepare to take off and land at
a shore base not far away. They were allowed one small suit-
case each, and most of them put in their girls' pictures and a
book or two. Their other belongings remained aboard. The
ship was temporarily out of the war but they and their planes
still could fight. They were needed desperately at Guadal-
canal.

Now the loud-speakers ordered, "Pilots, man your planes.*'
The planes were pushed as far to the rear of the deck as pos-
sible, to give them every possible inch of room for taking oflE
in compensation for the ship's lack of speed. One by one they
roared down the deck and got into the air; first the fighters,
then dive bombers, and finally the big TBF's. Later a few of
the fighters came back to protect us on our trip to port. The
other planes kept going and eventually reached Henderson
Field, where for many weeks they fought under incredible
conditions.

When the planes left us, their mechanical crews trans-
ferred to a destroyer which came alongside our limping ship
and took aboard load after load of tools, ammunition, per-

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sonal belongings, airplane propellers, and parts. Jack Singer
went aboard the destroyer and the last time I saw him he was
hanging limply over the bridge rail of the pitching ship, wav-
ing wanly to his friends lining the flight deck of the carrier.

All day long our destroyers circled and raced around us,
keeping enemy subs from sneaking in close enough to deal the
carrier a deathblow. By nightfall Chief Grady was able to
push on a few more knots and next morning we were out of
range of the Jap land-based bombers. There were still subs
in our vicinity, apparently trailing the huge oil slick we were
leaving behind us, but the destroyers maintained their pro-
tective guard and no subs got through,

A week or so later we put in to a South Sea island harbor
to make temporary repairs. I flew ashore in a TBF and landed
at an airfield manned by U.S. Army pilots. They told me a
Pan American Airways plane was coming through next morn-
ing on a survey trip of island harbors, and in the morning I
was sitting on the dock when the twin-engine Martin patrol
bomber landed and the crew and passengers came ashore. The
first man out of the small boat was Martin Agronsky, the NBC
correspondent whom I had last seen in Australia when we
discovered that we had both studied journalism at Rutgers.

''How's chances for a lift?" I asked Martin,

He pointed out a slim, young-looking man, in Navy khaki
with his Pan-American cap tilted over one eye. "That's Cap-
tain Joe Chase. Better ask him."

"Any room for a hitchhiker?" I asked the captain.

**Not a chance," Joe said. '*We are heavily overloaded now.
The baggage is in the bomb bays. If one engine quits we'll
dump the baggage. If we still lose altitude we'll throw the
newspaper men overboard first and then the Navy officers.
Haven't got any room for you." Then, without changing ex-
pression, he added, *'Get your baggage and be here at one
o'clock this afternoon."

I had taken Joe so seriously that I was going to leave my

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typewriter behind as a present to an American sailor on guard
duty at the dock. But Joe told me to bring it along. We flew
four days, stopping at islands so remote that most of them
don't appear on standard maps of the Pacific. At each of them
were American Army, Navy, or Marine fliers with the usual
handful of planes. The trip was uneventful except for the time
when one of the engines suddenly coughed and quit. Agron-
sky and I looked at each other silently. Then the engines
picked up again.

Joe made me pay for my trip by initiating me into the Short
Snorters and by beating me consistently at the dice game of
Bidou, which we both had learned in South America and
which we played in the officers' clubs at our overnight island
stops.

Finally we landed at Pearl Harbor. Salvage work on the
damaged battleships had progressed greatly in the ten weeks
since I had left on the carrier. Several of the battleships were
ready for sea duty again. The shops on shore were working
night and day, and installations were being extended.

This time there was no telegram to keep me from going
home— only a message telling me that I was too late to see my
mother. She had died the day of our sea battle north of the
Solomons. I decided to go back anyway, to see what the United
States looked like after six years, to learn to speak English
again, and to find out if the people realized what we were up
against in the Pacific. My wife was to join me in New York.
The trip up to the coast on a cruiser was peaceful and the sky-
line of San Francisco was the most beautiful sight I had seen in
my life— up to then.

There are three other scenes which I hope to live long
enough to witness.

I want to be there when General Douglas MacArthur raises
the American flag over Corregidor again; and then hauls it
down and with his own hand raises the flag of the Republic of

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the Philippines, the symbol of a nation which won its right
to life by learning how to suffer and how to die.

I want to be with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek when he
marches once again into Nanking after the last Jap has been
killed or driven from China.

And I want to see Jonathan Wainwright and Joe Smith and
Arthur Wermuth and some Filipino Scouts and Vandegrift
and his Marines ride down the main street of Tokyo; and with
Admiral Halsey and his sailors drive in tanks and armored cars
across the moat and enter the Imperial Palace, while American
airplanes fly overhead in clouds so thick that they hide the
rising sun.

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INDEX

Abston, Captain A. A., 251
Abucay, 188; Hadenda, 810, tisf.
Advenario, Sergeant Domingo, 186,
187

Africa, 888; North, 245
Agronsky, Martin, 363 /.
Akagi, carrier, 309. 312, 315
Akers. Ensign, 198, 202, 290
Akiyama, Lieutenant Colonel Kunio,

8, 16, 152
Alaska, 271

Alcoti, Carroll, 14, 172
Aleutians, 272, 307
Amoy, 19
Amur River, 12

Anhwei, steamer, 44, 64, 242^ t64/.

Antipodes, 296
Aparri, 38, 46, 52, 65, 73, 131
Arayat, Mt., 81
Argenlieu, Admiral de, 300
Arizona, battleship, 303/., 306, 318
Army and Navy Club (Manila), 63,
159.

Asia, 145; East, 17; Southeastern, 273
Asiatic Fleet, 69, 118, 120/., 123, 177,
196, 200

Associated Press, The (AP). 5, 6, 7,
12, 17, 23, 26, 29, 41, 120, 151, 209,
214, 228, 250, 283, 290, 299, 317, 359

Astoria, cruiser, 318, 335 344

Atimonan, 75, 76, 144, 150

Auckland, 293

Australia, 5. 38, 52, 68, 121, 124, 128,
MS» ^55' 15^' 175' 177' 185, 202,
241, 243 ff., 256 ff., 268, 283 ff,, 290
«94/v io8, 318, 327, 363; Hotel, 290

Avenue Hotel, 66

Backus, Colonel, 68

Badlands, 6

Bagac, 189/., 193, 204

Baguio. 35, 52, 83^., 88/., 92, 97^.,
102 0., 109, 114/., 135/., 141/., 144,
172, 194. 211, 232, 266; Little, 191,

m

Balanga, 192, 208, 210
Bali, 124
Bangkok, 44 /•

S

Barilli, 255 /.
Bass, Ensign, 355

Batan Islands, 38; Bataan Peninsula,
21, 40t 52 57/-> 77. 87' ff..
134/7.. 143 /•> 146, 149, 152, 155,
158/., 162, 167, 170, 17s ff., 180^.,
188 ff.,2os /.,2og/.,2i7, 233 ff.,229j0F.,
236 ^r., 240, 243, 245/., 250/., 253/.,
256, 258. 268. 270, 274 283 ^F.,
287, 289 296. 300, 314. 317/.,
332. 33S» 34^' 357; Mountain, 189

Batangas, 128, 136, 148, 150, 253

Batavia, 5. 19

Bauang, 84, 87, 90

Bayoneta, Solomon, 186

Bayview Hotel, 132, 148, 151/.

Beasley, Leon, 48

Bell, Don, 246

Bennett, Roy, 40, 75

Benson, Captain, 160

Bewley, Mrs., 234

Binalonan, 141

Bird, Major, 243/., 256 ff., f6a/.
Boguslav^ave, 74 /.
Bohol, 263 ff.
Boise, ship, 358
Borneo, 52, 128, 170, 185, 204
Bottomley, Lieutenant Syd, 311, 329,
345

Bottomside, 161 ff., 169 /., 173, 180
Bowers, Doc, 341
Brett, Commander Jimmy, 297 ff.
Brett, General George* 68
Brick, Al, 318

Bridget, Commander Francis J., 194,
217 ff., 278

Brines, Russell, 26 29, 33, 35, 45, 61,
65. 68, 77, 118 ff., 149, 271; Mrs. Rus-
sell, 149

Brisbane, 242, 259, 261, 266, 269 /., 283
British Empire, 288, 294
Brundidge, Harry, 279 /.
Bulkeley, Lieutenant John, 197 ff,,

201 223, 246 284, 289/., 314
Bund, the, 15, 34
Burma, 10, 24, 145, 201, 323
Buse, Sam, 48
Buss, Dr. Claude A., 147/.
Butler, Ensign Johnny, 315/.

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INDEX

Caballo Island, 163
Cabanatuan, 93; Road, 103, 136
Cabcaben. 173. 175, 180, 182, 189, 191,
209, 244

California, 5, 308, 324; Southern, 1
California Farmer, freighter. 242
Callaghan, Rear Admiral Daniel J.,
358

Campbell, Soupy, 345
Camranh, 12

Canberra, cruiser, 335 344
Canopus, sub tender, 177, 190
Canton Island, 143
Capiz, 255
Carabao, 163

Carlsbad Current— Argus, 237
Caroline Islands, 266
Carson. Lew, 251, 255 258 269
Casiana, yacht, 159, 170, 175/., 180
Cavite, 22, 44^., 60 tf., 65, 119, 122.

i«5» 135' M7» i53» 155' "63/.,
217. 243, 247; Province, 148, 231, 253

Cebu, 177, 202, 243/., 249, 255 267,
269. 285

Changkufeng Hill, 24

Changsha, 9 ff.

Chapman, C. C. ("Chappie"), 32, 70
Chase, Captain Joe, 363 /.
Cheek, Commander Mike, 178, 181,
197, 293

Chi-wang, Lieutenant Colonel, 201
289

Chichibu. Prince, 12

Chiang Kai-shek, Generalissimo, 3, 11,

67, 201, 365; Madame, 29
China, 1, 4, 10, 12, 15, 67, 82, 125, 148,

201, 242, 248, 270/., 273^., 279/.,

289, 348, 365; Coast. 17, 19, 95, 200;

Free, 3, 7, 11; North, 4, 15. 30, 270,

277, 280/.; Western, 11
China Sea, 134, 148, 162, 188, 190, 193,

195, 204, 225, 251, 253
Chinese Army, 201; Communist New

Fourth, 6
Chingwangtao, 15
Chile, 291

China Weekly Review, 14
Chungking, 7, 9^., 67, 118, 200/., 225
Church, Lieutenant Russell M., 56
Clark Field, 35, 39/., 45. 48. ^off,, 65,

77. 80/., 116, 167/., 180. 185
Clarke, Colonel George, 194
Cleland, Major, 256
Cobb. Phil, 345, 353. 356
Collins, Captain, 310
CoUyer, Colonel, 87

ColvUle, Cabot, 173
Concession, British, 270; French, 6
Cook, Colonel Thomas, 244
Cooper, Kent ("Kenper"), 23
Coral Sea, 229, 269, 284, 294, 308;
Battle. 284, 296/., 300, 305. 317. 319.

357

Corl, Naval Aviation Pilot. 357

Corregidor. 21, 26/., 40, 47, 58. 62, 64.
70, l^ff', ii9» 121 ff'» 128, 134, 143/ '
146 0., 153, 155/., 158/., 161 f.,
164 ff., ijiff., 180/., iSsff., 187/7.,
»97t 199* 204. 208/., 218/., 221,
229 5^., 233/., 238. 243 ff., 248/.,
«5»^v 258. 260/., 263, 265, 271/.,
279» 283^., 289, 291, 293, 317, 364

Corregidor, S. 5., 64, 156

Cothrane, Major Wade, 204, 206 /.

Covitt, Bert, 130/.

Cox, Ensign, 198, 200, 202, 290

Crete, 288, 294

Crome, Captain C. A., 226 /,

Cronin, Ray, 26/., 32/., 47, 65, 81
^49 0', »8i; Mrs. Ray, 149

Crosby, Bing. 174

Crystal Arcade. 66

Custer, Joe, 318

Da Mortis, 84 87, 90, 94, 139

Dale, Pilot Jack, 57

Darwin, 55. 244, 291

Davao, 34, 47, 52, 128. 285

Davis, Dwayne, 48, 237

Davis, Gene. 48, 59, 237

De Gaulle, General Charles, 300

De Long, Lieutenant Edward, 197/.,
200, 290

Del Monte, 52 /., 256, 284. 290

Dewey, Admiral, 18, 74, 120; Boule-
vard, 42, 47, 60/., 132, 153. 155

Diller, LeGrand A., 36, 38, 39. 65/.,
80. 127/.. 134, 149, 161, 174/.. 178*
181, 250

Dixon, Kenneth L., 237

Doheny, E. L.. 180

Doihara, Colonel Kenjichi, 45

Dolores, 146

Don Esteban, steamer. 184, 243
Don Jos^, freighter. 67. 128, 156
Dorla Nati, ship, 242, 259 0., 265, 268,
284

Donald. W. H.. 67
Drum, Fort, 163, 247 /.
Dufilho, Lieutenant Marion, 355
Dutch East Indies, see Netherlands
East Indies

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Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

INDEX

S60

Earnest, Bert, 342
Easter Island, 291

Edmunds, Lieutenant Colonel, 257,
259

Elder, Bob. 345. 348 353, 356
Elizaldes* Polo Field. 61
Engadine, H. Af. S., 64
Engineer Island, 154
England, see Great Britain
Estancia, 255

Eubank, Colonel Eugene, 51 /.
Ewa, 303

Fairchild, George, 30, 153/.

Far East, 14. 23. 31, 272

Felt, Commander Don, 339, 341, 343,

349 352, 355
Fiji, 269, 296/., 299
Filemon, Lieutenant, 206
Fitch, Admiral, 311
Fleming, Captain Richard E., 313
Fletcher, Admiral Frank Jack, 268,

297, 311. 320, 323, 345, 353, 361
Florida Island, 335
Floyd, Nat, 178, 201 289
Foochow Road. 5, 16
Ford, Henry, 224
Ford Island, 303, 306
Formosa, 27, 30, 51 65
Forni, Frank, 48
Fortune Island, 253
Foyt, Al, 158, 175, 182
France, 300

Franco, General Francisco, 29, 132

Francisco, Sergeant Hilario, 25, 239

Frank, Fort, 163, 248

Eraser, Prime Minister Peter, 294/.

Frenchy, 342. 349, 353, 356

Fry, Colonel, 278

Ganahl, Major Joseph, 86/., 102/.,

114
Ganap, 46

Garcia, Major Joaquin, 88, 93/., 101,

103, 136
Garden, Bridge, 3/.
Gavutu, 328

George, Lieutenant Colonel Alex-
ander, 300

George, Harold. Brigadier General,
57, 191. 290, 291

Ghormley, Admiral, 293

Gies, Pilot Carl, 57

Glassford, Rear Admiral William C,
18, 29, 121

Gloucester, Hotel, 20/.
Godwin, Bill, 341, 355
Gonzales, Lieutenant, 210 ff,
Gould, Alan, 317
Grady, Mrs. Helen, 182
Grady, Commander Henry, 361 ff,
Graham, Corporal Clarence, 231
Grand Pacific Hotel, 299
Gray, Dick, 351

Great Britain, 4, 1 1, 23, 25, 38, 184, 272
Greece. 288

Greeley, Captain Horace, 225 /.
Green, Frank, 350/., 355
Green, Lieutenant, 265, 268
Guadalcanal. 272. 274, 300, 328 331,

333 i^v 339. 343 /v M9ff'> 857* 359*
362

Guam, 33 44

Gunnison, Arch Royal, 26, 151; Mrs.
Arch Royal, 80

Hailey, Foster, 318

Hainan Island, 4, 7, 27, 30, 51

Halsey, Admiral William F., 271, 326.

358, 365
Hamby, Corporal William, 187
Hamilton, Lieutenant Colonel

"Duke." 15. 172
Hankow, 283

Harmer. Lieutenant Chick, 355

Harris, Colonel Herb, 127/., 134, 146

Harris, Morris, 6, 151

Harrison Boulevard, 61

Hart, Admiral Thomas C, 22, 26/.,

31 91, 117, 120^.
Haruna, battleship, 55
Harwood, Lieutenant Bruce, 331

351 /., 355
Hawaii, 35, 38, 43, 55, 143, 271, 303,

308, 320

Hay, John. Camp, 35, 83, 86, 88, 102,
106, 109

Henderson Field, 337, 346, 352, 357,
362

Henderson, Major Lofton R., 313

Henry, Bill, 329

Hernandez, Captain, 101

Hewlett, Frank, 130/., 152, 178, 208/.,

289; Virginia, 152
Hickam Field, 304
Hill, Max, 151
Hirohito, Emperor, 4, 84
Hiryu, carrier, 309
Hitler, Adolf, 45. 288
Hoeffel, Captain, 121
Hogaboom, Lieutenant, 219 j^.

Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

370

INDEX

Hodgkins, Arthur G., 306

Homma, Lieutenant General Masa*

haru, 193 ^70 /.
Hong Kong, 7, 19 ff., 24, 30, 54, 44, 65^

88, 272, 280; Hotel, 20
Hongkcw, 8, 62

Honolulu, 5 25, 25, 29. 52, 55, 67,
267. 299 fJ'> 3^3* 3o6» 30*^ 0'> 3^^'
326, 33 337' 347

Hopei, 281

Horan, Major, 88

Hornet, carrier, 311, 315, 359

Houston, cruiser, 18, 27, 124, 165

Howard, Colonel Samuel, 15, 172

Huff, Colonel Sid, 250

Hughes, Fort, 163, 248

Hughes. Major, 180

Hull, Cordell, 2, 8, 23. 26

Hurley, Brigadier General Patrick J.,
240/., 244/., 293

Iba Field, 40, 55
Ilocano, 125
Iloilo, 243, 255
India, 64. 145

Indo-China, 4, 12, 27, 30, 45
Inland Sea, 244
Inopacan, 264

International News Service, 318
International Settlement, 4, 6, 34
Intramuros, see Walled City, 35
Irwin. Colonel Pete, 203, 209
Isaman, Lieutenant Roy, 311, 345
Ishimaru, Lieutenant Conmiander

Tota, 25
Itogen, 103 114

Jacoby, Annalee, 29, 80, 118/., 152,
148/., 151^., 159/., 172/., 178, 180,
246/., 249, 251^., 256/., 266, 269,
283, 290; Melville, 29, 39, 118 f,, 128,

131 //v 136' HO* i43» /v i5» ff's
158 ff., 165, 172 178. 180/., 191,
246 249, 251 ff., 256 ff., 262, 266 ff.,
269/., 283, 290/.
James, Charlie, 48

Japan, 1 ff„ 8/., 23, 25, 28, 31, 33, 45.

5»» 53' 7^' 80, 152, 154, 248, 270, 272,

274, 292 296
Japan Must Fight Britain, 25
Japanese Mandated Islands, 55, 242,

258, 266 269, 293. 297, 319, 327
Java, 52, 58, 64, 91, 121/., 124, 185,

J95/., 204, 217, 241, 244, 248
Java Sea, 18; Baule, 124, 335
Jeds, Commander Charles, 29

Jennings, Lieutenant, 175
Jolo, 122, 128, 170, 185
Jones Bridge, 77
Jurika, Lieutenant, 265

Kaga, carrier, 309, 315 /.
Kanazawa, Rear Admiral, 33, 271
Kaneohe Naval Air Station, 304
Kansai, 274

Kash, Corporal "Gabby," 172

Keator, Pilot Randolph, 57

Kelly, Captain Colin, 55. 137

Kelly, Lieutenant, 198, 202. 290

Kelly Field, 56

Kern, ''Bullet Lou,** 345, 352

Ketch um. Major, 140

Kingwan, 1

King, General, 240

King Kong, restaurant, 6

Klondike (P. I.). 96

Knox, Secretary Frank A., 126

Kobe, 274, 349

Kowloon Peninsula, 20, 34, 44
Kukoom, 331 /.
Kurusu, 2, 17, 23, 26
Kwantung Army, 12
Kwiatowski, Lieutenant J. D., 231
Kyoto, 274

Landingham, Charles van, 158, 252,

254 ^r., 266
Laugley, carrier, 34
Langoscawayan Point, 217^., 222/.,

278/.

Larsen, Lieutenant Harold "Swede,"

333' 339 346 g., 352 356
Lash, Corporal, 161 f.
Legaspi, 73. 75/.
Legaspi, ship, 177, 243, 255
Lehrbas, Colonel Lloyd, 290 /.
Lewis, Doctor, 356

Lexington, carrier, 71, 268, 269, 279/.

Leyte, 263 /.

Libya, 294, 296

Life Magazine, 26, 151

Liloan, 256 /.

Lim, General, 214 /.

Lingayen City, 82 j?., 86/., 115, 134,
137/., 142, 192, 223; Gulf, 47, 73,
80/,, 83/., 89, 95. 102, 105, III/.,
114/., 122/., 141, 146. 275

Lochner, Louis P., 151

Looc, 254

Los Angeles, 259

Lough, General, 214/.

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Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

INDEX

871

Lucena, 77

Luisiana, 146

Luneta. 42, 47, 65, 70

Lunga Point, 351, 344, 346

Luzon, 27, 38, 40, 46, 56, 58, 65, 69,
73ff-» 82. 89, 92, 102, 118, 121 ff.,
i«6, 138, 146, 150, 178. 185, 192, 196.
224/., 229, 253/., 274

Luzon, gunboat, 177

Maas, Colonel Melyin J., 320

MacArthur, General Douglas, 62, 65,
67* 71 U l^f'^ 90, 116. 125/., 131,
134* H9* 1^4' ^70, 173 U
177/., 180, 185 192^., 202/., 217,
222, 231 ff., 240, 242 ff., 252, 256, 268.
270 f., 283 ff., 296 299. 364; Arthur,
«S4» «50J ^*rs. Douglas, 234, 249/.

Macassar Straits, 242; Battle of, 124

McDaniel, Lieutenant L. E., 53, 231

McCain, Admiral John S., 299

Mackay Radio, 32, 137

McKinlcy, Fort, 60, 65, 135

McMurtry, Charles, 359

McNair, Major, 183, 185

McNair, Red, 329. 345

Mactan, hospital ship, 155

Malaita Island, 338, 350

Maili Beach, 303

Malaya, 4, 10, 12, 24, 27, 31. 35, 44, 62,
124, 143, 145, 195, 244. 272, 274, 288,
323, 348

Malinta Hill, 164/., 169: Tunnel,
163^., 168, 173/., 181, 234, 238, 247,
286

Manchukuo, 4, 7, 8, 12, 277

Manila, ^ff,, 14, 18, 21, 23, 27, 29/.,
32 ff,, 38 ff., 43, 45 ff., 51 55, 5SJ.,
6iff., 67, 69. 73, ^5ff., 88, 92 fl^.,
101^., 106, 110, 114/v U7f t2o»
i2tff., 134, 136, 140, 142 ff., 150/.,

»53» 155 /•> 158' 1^7- 170. 174 /•>
182, 184, 189, 194, 198, 231 236/.,
239, 242, 246, 249 /.> 252, 259. 275,
287, 292

Manila Bay, 18, 21, 27, 36, 47, 74. 134,
136, 148, 156, 158, 162/., 165, 175,
177, 180, 191/., 195, 198, 204, 211,
221, 243, 246, 253
Manila BulUtin, 32, 38 ff., 75, 125
Mamla Hotel, 24 ff., 29, 32, 37. 54, 63,
69/., 74, 118, 129, 152, 155, 159, 231,
239

Marblehead, cruiser, 27, 124
Marcus Island, 293

Marivcles, 134/^ 144^ 149, 151, 153.
156* »58» 160, 161, 175, 177, 185,
189 ^F., 217/., 240; Bay, 190; ML, 21,
44, 189, 203, 252

Marks, Lieutenant Sid, 140

Marquat, Colonel Williajn« 149, 150,

Marshall, Brigadier General, toj
Marshall Islands, 266
Marsman, Jan, 89, 177, 198; Building,
122

Mary Ann, yacht, 198, 199
Matsuda, Sublieutenant K., 16 /.
Matsui, Sergeant Hajime, 1,3, 16
Mauban, 75 /•

Meade, Captain Lawrence, 206/.
Melbourne, 283/., 286, 289^.
Merrill, Major Frank. 7 /.
Merett, Lieutenant Samuel H., 56
Merrimac, ship, 18
Metropole, Hotel, 14
Mexico, 29
Mexico (P. I.), 137
Middle East, 288
Middleside, 163

Midway, 71. 229, 272, 309^., 515, 328;
Battle of, 297, 305, 307^., 316 J?.,

S«5* S4».S57
Milenz, Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd, 182
Miller. Bob, 346/.
Mills, Fort, 162

Mindanao, 28, 34, 52, 68, 128, 202, 244.

256/., 265. 284 /., 289
Mindanao, gunboat, 177
Mindoro, 118, 128, 254
Miranda. Joaquin, 32, 231
Miranda, Lieutenant, 220
Monitor, ship, 18

Mitchell. Sergeant Robert, 77/, 178
Molucca Straits, 242
Moncada, 128

Moore, General George, 285
Moore, Pilot Joseph, 57
Moron, 188, 190, 192
Moros, 28
Moscow, 8. 12

Mujica Lainez, Roberto, 6, i&ff^ 2t,

24/.
Mukden, 45
Muriyama, 9
Mussolini. Benito, 45
Mydans, Carl, 26, 151, 153; Shdley, 26,

151 fiF.

Myer, Fort, 187
Nagasaki, 1

Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

372

INDEX

KagatonI, A. H.. 89

Nanking, 53, 67, 280, 365

Natib, Mt., i8g, 193, 204 /r» 209/.,

212/.

Nelson, Colonel Frank, 225
Netherlands, 272

Netherlands East Indies, 4, 12, 18, 25,
27, 68, 119, 128, 158, 160, 170, 195,
267, 274, 284, 28G

New Britain, 55, 266 /.

New Caledonia. 2G9, 271, 284, 290/.,
295 ff'^ 299/.

New Guinea, 266/., 284. 294, 297, 327,

833

New Hebrides, 328

New York City, 10, 31, 80, 120, 124,

150 if., 228, 259, 330, 364
New York Times, 75, 178, 201, 289, 318
New Zealand, 284, 287, 290 ff., 345
Nichols Field, 27, 47, 58. 60/., 65^.,

125, 135' »50' i53» 285
Nimitz, Admiral Chester, 308/.
Ningpo, 95

Nishihara, Major T., 21

Noble, Major. 86

Noli, Lieutenant, 78

Nomura, Ambassador Kichisaburo, 8

North American Newspaper Alliance,

26, 151
Noumea, 300/.

Oahu, 303, 309, 320

Oahu, gunboat, 177

Oden, J. A., Jr., 48

Oklahoma, battleship, 303/., 318

Olangapo, 30, 117, 122, 172

Orient, the, 8, 9, 23, 44, 270, 272, 280,

292
Osaka, 274

Pacific, 28, 30, 241, 245, 248, 266, 283,
286, 288, 296, 302, 305. 317, 319, 330,
334' 336 A. 34 >> 3641 Coast. 304/.;
Fleet. 6, 299/., 318/.; South. 293.
325 1'> 358; Southwestern, 9. 258. 271,
285, 287, 299; Western, 4, 292

Pampanga, 126, 134, 143

Panama, 271

Panay. 255

Panay, gunboat, 53

Pandacen, 153, 155

Pangasinan Province, 82, 112

Papua, 297

Parker, General, 189, 195

Pasay, 150

Pasig River, 77, 132, 133, 155

Patch, Major General, 500
Peak, the, 20
Pearl City, 306

Pearl Harbor, 25, 32/., 38/., 43, 51,
53' 7^ 229, 231. 244, 270^., 288.
293 /v 299, 303^., 309, 312. 315,
3 18 328 333, 335. 341, 359 364

Peiping, 6, 8

Percival, Jack, 26, 60, 151

Perez, 220/.

Petri tz. Ensign George, 189

Pfeiffer. Ensign Carl, 313 ^.

Philippines, 4/., 10, 24, 26, 28^., 36.
38]^., 42 46, 48, 51 Q., 58, 64. 70,
76, 80, 89, 93, 107, 115. 118, 120/f.,
126/., 145, 149, 170, 179, 185. 189.
195/., 202, 217, 225, 240^., 244/?.,
255. 265/., 268 jf., 272. 274/.. 285.
285/7., 290/., 317. 323. 337, 348. 364

Phillips, Admiral Sir Tom. 61 /.

Pierce, Brigadier General Clinton, 85,
138/f., 181, 223/., 227

Pilar, 189, 193, 209, 216

Pillsbury, destroyer, 124

Pines Hotel, 88, 92. 103

Plant, Ensign William H.. 197

Pola, 254

Pons. Captain, 2&off., iij^tJ., 284

Pope, destroyer, 124

Port Arthur, 25

Port Darwin, 241

Port Moresby, 272

Powell. J. B., 14

President Coolidge, steamer, 5 /., 22

io, 58

President Harrison, steamer, 15, 30
Prince of Wales, H. Af. 5., 6i. 272
Princesa de Cebu, ship, 243, 249,

251 0'* 255/.
P T boats, 37 121. 123, 177, 189. 194.

196/7., 240, 251, 258, 289. 314. 317
Pugh, Major Johnny, 225
Puttick, Major General, 294/.

Quezon, President Manuel, 28, 30/.,
35, 147/., 159, 164/., 170, 175/., 180,
185 /., 238, 244/., 250
Quincy, cruiser. 335 344
Quinn, Lieutenant Tom. 306
Quintard, Lieutenant Colonel Alex-
ander, 204 Q.

Rabaul, 267 ff., 327. 333/., 352. 361
Ramsey, Captain "Duke," 319/., 33s

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Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

INDEX

373

Randolph Field, 56
Rangoon, 292
Ray, Captain, 121, 247/.
Raymond, Lieutenant Ted, 198
Repulse, H, M. 5., 61, 272
Repulse Bay, 20
Reuters, 178
Richardison, Admiral, 25
Richardson. Ensign, 198/.
Rice, Jack, 359
Rice, Jonathan, 290 /.
Richardson, Dave, 351
Rickenbacker, Captain Eddie, 302
Rio, Private Louis, 231
Rizal, Jos^, 42

Roberts, Ensign John Quincy, 313^.
Robinson, Robbie, 329, 341
Roces. Don Alejandro, 74 78, 144
Rockwell, Rear Admiral, 62/., 121,

164, 178, 197, 201
Romulo, Major Carlos, 65 133, 178,

250

Roosevelt, President Franklin D^ 30,

68. 126, 241, 258
Rosario, 139

Royce, Brigadier General Ralph, 285,
289

Runyon, Chief Machinist's Mate, 355
Russia, 8, 12, 273
Rutherford, Sergeant, 181
Ryukaku, carrier, 297

Si. Louis Post Dispatch, 137

St, Louis Star-Times, 279

Saito, Lieutenant Colonel Jiro, 45

Sakadalista, 46

Samal, 205, 235

San Bernardino Strait, 264

San Fernando, 40, 82, 135 /., 142

San Francisco, 6, 38, 174. 292, 310, 364

San Francisco, cruiser, 358

San Marcos, 117, 135

San Nicolds, 103, 104, 108, 110, 112;

River, 106, 109
Santa Maria, 110
Santiago, Fort. 35. 36
Santo Domingo Church, 131 ff.
Santo Tomds University, 75
Saucr, Captain Kenneth. 179
Saulnier, Lieutenant Roland G., 236
Savo Island, 344; Battle of, 318, 335,

357/- . . ^ .

Sayre, High Commissioner Franas, 42,

71. 127, 132/., 146/., 164/., 173,

245 /., 250

Saysain Point, 224 f., 238

Schedler, Dean, 181 201, 250, 289
Schroeder, Lieutenant Fred, 323, 329,
345

Schumacher, Lieutenant Vince, 123,
198/.

Scuddcr, Colonel Irvine C, 257, 262
Seals, Brigadier General Carl. 165, 234;

Mrs. Carl, 234
Seater, Captain Bill, 158, 175/.
Shanghai, 2/., 5£F., 11. i$ff„ 18/., 21,

24'29/f., 34.44/v9B' i*?- i5» /•> 172.

186, 201. 251, 271, 273. 283. 303. 313
Shanghai-Hangchow Railway, 7
Shansi, 280

Sherwood, Lieutenant Gordon, 311,

320. 329. 345, 352
Shields, Lieutenant, 301
Shindlcr, Commander Walter, 345/.,

353

Siam. Gulf of, 31
Siberia, 12

Simpler, Captain Le Roy, 330
Singapore. 5. 20, 25. 27, 31, 35, 62, 64,

^7' 70. 153. 195. 248, 271 ff., 323
Singer, Jack, 318, 320, 322. 324, 329/.,

339' 350 $0i
Sisimen Cove, 196, 198, 202
Smarr, Lieutenant Larry, 137
Smith, Joe, 48, 59, 237, 365
Solomon Islands, 287, 327/., 335^.,

343' 350. 357 Battle of, 268, 305,

318, 322. 324, 351 ff., 359, 364
Soochow Creek, 4, 34
Soryu, carrier, 309
Spain. 28, 42, 154
Spcth, Major Emil, 89
Spruance, Admiral, 311
Stickney, Colonel, 182 /.
Stimson, Secretary Henry, 241
Stotsenberg, Fort. 35. 49/., 81, 116
Starkes, Carleton, 350 355
Subic Bay, 58, 117, 197. 199/., 314
Suntay II, ship, 184
Surigao Strait, 264 ff.
Sutherland. General R^-iiard K., 72,

165, 189
Suva, 299
Swatow, 201 f.

Sweeney, Colonel Walter C, Jr., 310
Sydney, 259, 291 /.
Sydney Moniini^ Herald, SS
Szechuen, 6; Road, 5

Tablas, 254 /.
Tagaitay, 29, 148, 150

Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

374

INDEX

Tagalog, 125
Tahiti, 67

Takada, Captain M., 8, 280
Taiyuanfu, 280
Tanambogo, 328, 333
Tarlac, 82 114/., 117. 135; Province,
82

Tasman Sea, 292

Tasmania, 291 ^

Tatsuta Maru, ship, 5

Tayug. 104, 110/., 114, 138, 141

Tcnaru River, 332, 546

Thailand, 31, 44

Tientsin, 270

Time Magazine, 29

Tjihadak, 5/., i8^F., 23

Togo, Foreign Minister, 1

Tojo, Premier, 1, 12, 26

Tokyo, 6 f]., 17, 24, 30, 33, 88, 138,

151 ^lii' «>7' 219, 271, 289
Topside, 162/.^ 169/.
Train. Lieutenant Arthur Jr., 300
Trapnell, Major, 140
Tribune-VangardiaTaliba (TVT),

40, 59/v66, 74,78' 1*7. Hi
Tribune, 125
Truk. 267, 326, 357
Trump, Chaplain, 186
Tsushima Straits, 17
Tuguegarao, 38
Tulagi. 328/., 331, 333 1?., 344

United Press, 66, 130, 138, 152, 178,
208, 318, 346

United States, 4 8 f., 12, 14, 18, 22 ff.,
^9f'> 33. 52, 74, 76, 103, 118,

120, 134, 143, 186, 224, 229, 231,
245 /•> «72. 283, 288 /f., 535,

364

Utah, battleship, 303

Vance, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald,
185

Vandegrift, General, 346, 365

Vargas, Jos*, 148

Vepsala, Major, 137

Verde Island, 254

Verdi. Sergeant, 231

Victoria. 1 10, 1 12 Calle, 36, 71, 117 /.

134, 148; Island, 20/.
Vigan, 40, 44. 56, 73, 86, 102/., 112
Villamor, Jesus, Captain, 55, 57, 68,

129, 289

Vincennes, cruiser, 335 f., 344
Viscayan, 125
Vladivostok, 18

Wack Wack golf course, 68
Wagner, Boyd ('Buzz"). 56
Wa^er, Lieutenant Commander, 341
Wainwright, General Jonathan, 114,

134 #v 141* 189/., 195, 219, 224/.,

289. 3^5
Wake, ship, 34

Wake Island, 43, 55, 71, 272, 296, 305,
323, 357

Walled City, 35, 43, 125, 131, 132, 133
Washington, D. C, 8, 14, $off., 68, 187,

197, 240/., 246, 287, 296, 336
Wasp, carrier, 356
Wavell, General, 52
Weaver, General, 230
Weisblatt, Franz. 138, 143
Wellington, 295

Wermuth, Captain Arthur, 203, 205,
208, 222, 234 17., 238. 243, 314, 365

West Virginia, battleship, 304

Whangpoo, 17/., 34

Wheeler, Private Ernest E., 231

While, Jimmy, 6, 34

White, Sergeant, 172/,

Wilkins, Ford, 75

Wilkinson, Major, 185

Williams, Colonel George, 86, 203-4,
207, 208

Williams, John, 55

Wint, Fort, 117

Woraack, Paul, 48

Woo, Washington, 6

Wright, Al, 329

Wright, Private Edward R., 131

Yacob, Corporal "Jock", 234/.

Yamamoto, 315

Yamashita, General, 195

Yangtze River, 14, stgff., 177, 198;

Delta, 15, 18; Patrol, 18
Yokohama, 143, 271
Yorktown, carrier, 297, 311 /.
Yusang, ship, 177

Zablan Field, 58, 65/., 68, 81, 135
Zambales, 81; Mountains, 114
Zaragoza, 146
Zamboanga, 128, 185

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Original from
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN